What about the Constitution (the Law of the Land)
Will those other countries adopt our Constitution. Or will it be thrown out.
What about the 2nd amendment? Will this "union" allow for armed citizenry?
or do we throw that out?
If American integration is done by allowing new states to join, no it wouldn't be thrown out. The bill of rights would remain as is.
Why do you support socialism? (it is failure everywhere)
Four layers of government not enough for you? SHEESH!
Elaborate on your argument. Would you prefer one layer of government? Would you prefer if state governments were abolished and only the feds existed? Or do you think two layers is best? Why?
(Please note my initial post: I'm not looking to hear AnCap arguments, so please don't respond with "I'd rather have no layers!".)
Were you sleeping through the Eurozone financial crisis? Note that it's not over.
http://www.economist.com/news/finan...ne-economies-looks-unsustainable-back-reality Why would you want to replicate that disaster in the western hemisphere? And even then, regional economic differences between north and south led to a civil war. I'm glad we weren't linked to Mexico when they had their peso crisis or Argentina when they had their peso crisis. Only someone insane would actually want that. Now as far as people being free to travel across borders, we had that prior to World War I. It's security concerns which have grown from our own decadent internationalism which initially caused border crossing to be restricted and not nativism. When Britain inhumanely blockaded Germany, causing Germany to respond with unrestricted submarine warfare, we should have told both nations "We will only trade in our own hemisphere until you sort this crap out."
And as far as the United States, that was a group of states with a common language and culture and ruled by a single entity (Great Britain) and it made perfect sense for those states to come together. Even then, regional economic differences ultimately led to the U.S. Civil War.
Meanwhile the Spanish speaking countries can't even come together on their own. Why should we come together with them?
I'm not proposing a currency union,
although several Latin American countries use the US dollar. Many others
peg their currency to the dollar. I personally favor de-nationalizing currencies as suggested by Hayek.
For the sake of argument though let us assume that American integration came along with an 'Amero' common currency. This might lead to greater financial stability for Latin America. The Federal Reserve sucks, but relative to other central banks it actually doesn't inflate our currency that much. I'm not saying that inflation isn't a serious issue. I'm saying that I would much rather have my currency controlled by the Fed than the Argentinian central bank.
Jesus Huerta de Soto makes a similar argument in defense of the
euro. There are flaws with the euro, but it has been good in so far that it has reduced inflation in countries like Spain which would not otherwise willingly adopt (relatively) tight money policies preferred by the German-dominated European Central Bank.
In review:
(1) De-Nationalized/Private Currency > (2) US Dollar > (3) Other National Currencies
The (1) first isn't an option for the time being. Therefore (2) is the best choice. If (1) becomes a choice we should of course take it!
As for why the rest of Latin America hasn't come together, it actually has made several strides towards lowering trade barriers (in goods and people) in recent years. It seems however that a long lasting federation needs a strong party inside the federation that the other members can agree to concede a leadership role to. Brazil is possibly the only country down there that is large enough to take up such a role, but Spanish America is not willing to concede such a role to it. You can see this play out whenever someone
proposes Brazil be given a UN security council seat. The United States is the only country that is both large enough and able to command the necessary respect from the rest of the American countries.
And once more, even if integration with Latin America is not feasible, why not attempt to integrate with the rest of Anglo-America? Canada, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Belize, etc?
It would be more apt to compare the US with empires, not countries.
IRT size, I doubt those Zeroes would have made it all the way to California.
Expansion means even more war.
Very well. Are 'smaller', in the geographical sense, empires better than larger ones?
Would you prefer to live in the United States or the German Empire (the Prussian led one in the 19th-20th century)? The former is more decentralized despite being larger in size and population.
It makes no difference: "smaller > bigger" in either case, geographically or jurisdictionally.
Or to put it another way, "disunion > union" ...
Do you concede at least that there is a cost to being small independent polity?
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Just so we're clear, American integration need not mean a larger federal government in term of scope. Consider the Hanseatic League. The league allowed the individual cities a great degree of autonomy when it came to domestic affairs, but bound them to a common defense pact and promoted free trade among them.
A physically larger United States might paradoxically encourage its federal government to shrink in size in terms of jurisdiction. All parties can agree to the benefit of trade and a common defense, but they would be less willing to agree to welfare programs or other redistribution schemes. The fact that several American countries could not adopt the welfare system of the US is an argument for, not against, greater integration. By necessity the federation would have to be reformed so that only trade, defense, and a few other duties would be dealt with by the federal government.
One of the problems with the EU I think is that it seems to think that countries should reach a certain threshold before being allowed to join. To the contrary, you want to increase diversity in order to induce reform in federal politics. There is of course a downside of too much diversity. This is why I am not proposing that we go and ask Pakistan or India too join. Why not however consider inviting a nation like Jamaica though?
It is English speaking. Has a common law system. Its descended from the British Empire. Geographically it is closer to the mainland than Hawaii or some of the more far flung parts of the union. Indeed, is it not strange that Hawaii is a state but Anglo-American Caribbean countries like the Bahamas or Jamaica aren't? Let us remember that several American founders were born in the Anglo-Caribbean and our early economy was strongly tied to those curious islands.
<shrug>
