Re: Name 3 countries you'd consider inviting to join the United States
There's been a lot of talk about a 'North American Union' which would supposedly consist of the USA, Canada and Mexico. But that's just paranoid conspiracy stuff, spouted by the likes of Hal Turner. None of those three countries - yes, not even the US - actually WANTS an NAU, and I wouldn't want it either.
There's a series of science fiction novels written in the '80s, by F.M. Busby. The Hulzein Saga's core books (
Young Rissa,
Rissa and Tregare, and
The Long View) show a dystopian type of future in which there are only three governments on Earth: The Hulzein Establishment controls Argentina, the Australians are independent (though at one time were Hulzein-connected), and the rest of the world is controlled by a massive fascist government called United Energy & Transport (UET).
Back in the early 21st century, the world economy got so bad that the United States literally couldn't afford to keep its form of government going. So various multinational conglomerates stepped in, bidding every four years for the right to govern. One of those, Synthetic Food & Combine, annexed Canada and Mexico. Then a few years later UET took over and decided there would be no more "elections." When Europe objected, UET used nukes to convince them.
There were those who believed that Manifest Destiny should include all of the Western Hemisphere.
We couldn't have a SuperUnion. We'd get bogged down arguing over the color of the money...and how to spell things.
Although I could get on board with becoming an official bi-lingual country (which we are in everything but name anyway) and
would Canada become 'tri-lingual'?
There are some regions that effectively are already. For example, in Nunavut there are three recognized official languages: English, French, and Inuktitut.
I've had some ridiculous questions about the nonexistantness of a name for the Union which should be more accurately listed as the United State collectively bound on the Continent of North America as well as the State of Hawaii which is not resting on the continent of North America too.
Honestly, shouldn't the US be called the United States of North America and Polynesia?
Point being is that as more noob States who join up with the core group who are not situated on one of two continents daring to refer to themselves as America, who can they continue to think of themselves as living on a continent that they are not living on just because they belong to a political entity that was founded on the continent of North America.
What is the Tipping point?
How many States delocalized from the continent of North America have to belong to the Republic before collectively they the people can no longer faithfully refer to their total homeland as "America" or "'Merica, Hell yeah!"?
I suppose it depends on whether you consider a continent to only be the part that's above the water, or if you consider it to be everything that's part of the plate it's on. If the latter, then there are parts of North America that aren't really parts of North America (and the same can be said for the rest of the world).
Canada could start calling itself The Country Canada of America, or Mexico could start calling itself the Country Mexico of America if the United States of America did make linguistic sense.
No. Just. No. Our country's name is fine as it is, thank you.
Since we're obviously not at all being serious:
Canada: I mean, what is the point of having the border anyways? Our governments and laws are mostly similar, and you wouldn't need a passport, you could just drive over. Or do we do those things already? Or we can just combine both governments. We can bring over better health care here!
Our governments are definitely not "mostly similar" and neither are our laws. Once upon a time you didn't need a passport to cross the border; it's only after 9-11 and the Age of Paranoia started that we've had to put up with this.
We've got 4 main political parties (5 in Quebec). We had a female Prime Minister over 20 years ago. And most of our politicians know how to leave their religion at the door and not bring it to work with them.
So no, thank you anyway, but I don't think that becoming one country would be appealing.
^How would that work with wall some want to errect along the USA/Canadian border, though I suspect it's less about keeping Canadians out but Americans in.
The border runs right through the middle of some buildings, including private homes. Putting up a wall there would be extremely inconvenient if a person has to present a passport just to use the bathroom.
Wow. America, Burma & Liberia are the only 3 countries in the world too stubborn not to have converted to the metric system from Imperial... Although the list I'm looking at calls Imperial the "customary system" since it'd be kinda whack for the yanks to still suck royal #### in this one quarter after the big deal they made about their independence.
Seriously this is not something you can be polite about it.
Stubborn must be code for dumb, or possibly lazy.
Which is ridiculous considering how fricking more complex it is to work in imperial if you have to actually calculate lots of factors for large systems.
So would these new states have to backslide to imperial, or would 200 million Americans finally embrace meters and kilograms 220 years after the French?
Metric has been "customary" here since the '70s. Some people are still complaining about it, though.
^I don't know. Depends on how much more efficient the metric and kilogram scale is.
It's a kind of mashed up bilingualism. When I order stuff from the deli, I have no problem thinking in grams. Same thing with liquids. I never did understand ounces. If someone tells me about a 16-oz container, I have no idea what they're talking about. But I get 250 mL, 500 mL, 750 mL, and full liters, no problem. And for lesser amounts, that's what measuring cups and spoons are for.
Celsius has always been easier for me to understand than Fahrenheit. I do have to admit that I still prefer to think in miles and pounds instead of kilometres and kilograms. As for inches and centimeters, it depends on what I'm measuring.