N.A.U.

[djolds1]

The US is based on English Settler Protestant Work Ethic culture.

i don't think that is entirely true - i think the 'work ethic' thing is much more of a German thing and a Chinese thing and an African thing if under physical duress.

The Puritans were Calvinists. Cut-throat penny pinching scrooges who saw it as a sacred duty to work hard to build up their piles of gold. These are the same people that created the Swiss Banques.

Ben Franklin's "Penny a day" was not an aberration.

At the same time you have the tradition of civil liberty growing out of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. And the history of firm religious conviction first illustrated by the Great Awakening of the 1740s.

such people should remember that Canada is part of the commonwealth and as such has the ear of Her Majesty on matters such as Gunships and Diplomacy. They mostly speak in french cipher I believe.

Written Queen's English has been defaced with French ever since the successful conquest of Angleland. Most unfortunate.

And to any French members, yes, I indulge in the Anglosphere's traditional French-bashing from time to time. Feel free to retaliate.

its true, no one is wanting to join a club if there are no benefits. or were you suggesting forcing them to join? i dont think that would be wise.

If the US desired it could force most of the Western Heimsphere into an NAU Trade Bloc. The EU is a semi-confederation of near equals. Any NAU would be ruled by a big primus inter pares.

could i suggest America consult Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías for his views?

Would those consultations be conducted in 5.56mm NATO ball ammunition, or 50 calibre?

Duane

[MSimon]

rcain,

The US Banks were nationalized with the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank nearly a hundred years ago.

BTW I don't think our new President was elected for policy reasons. People knew more about Sarah Palin than they did about Obama. It is why some have called our media the "Tanning Bed Media" you can look it up.

The New guy is the American Idol President. He told a different story to each of his interest groups and each group thought he was lying to the others. Wait until he does something. Heh.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/18/v ... t-elected/

It shows that a lot of folks had no idea about his policies. There is also a poll backing up the anecdotal evidence. It is very funny. And pathetic.

Disappointment is already setting in:

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2 ... heyre.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 0107.story

[rcain]

The US is based on English Settler Protestant Work Ethic culture.

i don't think that is entirely true - i think the 'work ethic' thing is much more of a German thing and a Chinese thing and an African thing if under physical duress.

The Puritans were Calvinists. Cut-throat penny pinching scrooges who saw it as a sacred duty to work hard to build up their piles of gold. These are the same people that created the Swiss Banques.

Ben Franklin's "Penny a day" was not an aberration.

i dare say.

At the same time you have the tradition of civil liberty growing out of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. And the history of firm religious conviction first illustrated by the Great Awakening of the 1740s.

Duane

I was under the impression that a tradition of 'liberty' has been around at least since the Greeks and probably a lot longer along side any notion of 'slavery' or 'illegitimate' power - i wasn't aware that America had invented it. i am so sorry.

as to religious awakenings - Islam is enjoying spectacular success at present, far from dwindling into historical curiosity as it ought, as all religion ought. the rest of us awoke into an 'age of reason', so i am told. some of us haven't yet made the transition. they will be assimilated. resistance is futile,

[djolds1]

rcain,

The US Banks were nationalized with the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank nearly a hundred years ago.

The Bank of the United States?

Simon, that imploded in short order.

The US didn't get a real central bank again until the Fed. And even the Fed was far from the scale and type of nationalizations we've seen in recent weeks.

Edit: I really need to read before I leap.

The BotUS was ~200 years ago, the Fed ~80.

BTW I don't think our new President was elected for policy reasons. People knew more about Sarah Palin than they did about Obama.

The man is an utter cipher. People projected their every aspiration and hope onto his shell. Now we see if he can manage to keep playing the "all things to all people" tap dance, or if he implodes. Obama's numbers are so high that all he can do is go down.

It is why some have called our media the "Tanning Bed Media" you can look it up.

The Chris Matthews & Keith Olbermann types, that even Bill Mahr was denigrating? I call them the "Orgasms for Obama" crowd.

Disappointment is already setting in

Obama implicitly sold himself to the Hard Left base as offering LBJ2, but packaged in the sexy gift wrap of JFK2. Now he's won and suddenly his cabinet and apparent policies look like Clinton2.

His promises to the Hard Left base were like a commercial for "Extenze." Long on implication, short on actual specifics.

Duane

[djolds1]

At the same time you have the tradition of civil liberty growing out of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. And the history of firm religious conviction first illustrated by the Great Awakening of the 1740s.

Duane

I was under the impression that a tradition of 'liberty' has been around at least since the Greeks and probably a lot longer along side any notion of 'slavery' or 'illegitimate' power - i wasn't aware that America had invented it. i am so sorry.

America didn't invent it.

You really should peruse some wiki articles before jumping in with snark.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was English. The final victory assuring Parliamentary Supremacy over the Crown. The echoes of that were part and parcel of the American Rebellion of 1776.

And the English most definitely did create the tradition of civil liberty in the West. Recall "The Rights of Englishmen." The Continent fought against it tooth and claw, in some instances up until 1918 and even 1945. See Metternich, Prince Klemens Wenzel von.

as to religious awakenings - Islam is enjoying spectacular success at present, far from dwindling into historical curiosity as it ought, as all religion ought. the rest of us awoke into an 'age of reason', so i am told. some of us haven't yet made the transition. they will be assimilated. resistance is futile,

Cute attempt to dodge the issue.

The exceptionalism of the US is in no small part rooted in it enduring religious convictions. The Europeans slaughtered themselves in the Wars of Religion. That led to Deism and later the Enlightenment, expressions of absolute terror of faith. British North America managed to dodge that fratricidal slaughter, therefore its traditions are different. The Enlightenment was a fashionable import to BNA, but never organic.

Oh, and the Great Awakening is an actual historic period.

As to an age or reason, odds are that the 20th century was the high point of fetishized Western rationalism. A solid case can be made that the collapse of Rationalism's Quasi-Religion (Bolshevism) is the herald for a renaissance of faith. Humanities scholarship in the West becomes ever more and more absurd. Europe and their cultural brethren in the US are committing slow demographic suicide. The breeders (i.e. religious) will inherit the Earth. Darwin can be a bitch.

Duane

[rcain]

guys, i do wish you'd give Obama a break.
he won fair and square.
he hasn't even started the job yet.
so, the circumstances are 'imperfect'.

true, he is to an extent responsible for the 'expectations' of him, by others. he is not responsible i think for any sense of 'realism' or for 'critical reasoning' within the electorate.

presentation of 'facts' is another matter. but hey, we DO enjoy a free media right? so we should be covered, should we not

Viv’ La Différence
while it lasts

[rcain]

At the same time you have the tradition of civil liberty growing out of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. And the history of firm religious conviction first illustrated by the Great Awakening of the 1740s.

Duane

I was under the impression that a tradition of 'liberty' has been around at least since the Greeks and probably a lot longer along side any notion of 'slavery' or 'illegitimate' power - i wasn't aware that America had invented it. i am so sorry.

America didn't invent it.

You really should peruse some wiki articles before jumping in with snark.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was English. The final victory assuring Parliamentary Supremacy over the Crown. The echoes of that were part and parcel of the American Rebellion of 1776.

And the English most definitely did create the tradition of civil liberty in the West. Recall "The Rights of Englishmen." The Continent fought against it tooth and claw, in some instances up until 1918 and even 1945. See Metternich, Prince Klemens Wenzel von.

and some of us just lost our estates.

as to religious awakenings - Islam is enjoying spectacular success at present, far from dwindling into historical curiosity as it ought, as all religion ought. the rest of us awoke into an 'age of reason', so i am told. some of us haven't yet made the transition. they will be assimilated. resistance is futile,

Cute attempt to dodge the issue.

The exceptionalism of the US is in no small part rooted in it enduring religious convictions. The Europeans slaughtered themselves in the Wars of Religion. That led to Deism and later the Enlightenment, expressions of absolute terror of faith. British North America managed to dodge that fratricidal slaughter, therefore its traditions are different. The Enlightenment was a fashionable import to BNA, but never organic.

Oh, and the Great Awakening is an actual historic period.

borg do not dodge issues. borg create them.

i dare say you are right. there are many historical perspectives.

As to an age or reason, odds are that the 20th century was the high point of fetishized Western rationalism. A solid case can be made that the collapse of Rationalism's Quasi-Religion (Bolshevism) is the herald for a renaissance of faith. Humanities scholarship in the West becomes ever more and more absurd. Europe and their cultural brethren in the US are committing slow demographic suicide. The breeders (i.e. religious) will inherit the Earth. Darwin can be a bitch.

Duane

are you sure about that?

[MirariNefas]

The question isn't could it be done. The question is would the minor partners want to lock themselves in to that level of explicit submission to the US? Yes much of the Western Hemisphere is already essentially subordinate to the US, but current fictions allow a degree of flexibility that a formal NAU would eliminate.

It's only submission if you don't have a say. If other states join the US in some kind of superstate, the get to vote in the new policymaking apparatus. I'd think that, compared to current domination by the US, that would be an improvement.

I grant that people don't see it that way. But that's only because people are irrational nationalists.

[MirariNefas]

Or consider Mexico. Mexicans are strongly nationalist, more ruthless than modern Americans, and have a population one-half that of the US. Anschluss of any sort is improbable given that scale of population. An NAU would be another Austria-Hungary at best.

No, they don't have a population half the size of the US. It's only one third. It's still a big amount to take in, and that's why we'd need the Canadians to balance their voting tendencies, though they've only got a third the number of people that Mexico has. Between the two, we'd add 30 million Canadians and 100 million Mexicans to 300 million Americans. That'd still be smaller than the EU, with a slightly smaller economy, but very close and with good growth potential. It would help us keep a larger economic and military advantage over China as they develop over the next few decades. We may not have the Romulan Star Empire to galvanize us, but the Earth is a big place.

[MSimon]

The Federal Reserve System (also the Federal Reserve; informally The Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. Created in 1913 by the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, it is a quasi-public (government entity with private components) banking system[1] composed of (1) the presidentially appointed Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.; (2) the Federal Open Market Committee; (3) twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation acting as fiscal agents for the U.S. Treasury, each with its own nine-member board of directors; (4) numerous private U.S. member banks, which subscribe to required amounts of non-transferable stock in their regional Federal Reserve Banks; and (5) various advisory councils. As of February 2006, Ben Bernanke serves as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve

As I said. About 100 years ago. 95 to be exact.

And yes. Any system which can make up money to loan to banks under the authority of the Federal Government is a defacto Nationalization.

[ravingdave]

guys, i do wish you'd give Obama a break.
he won fair and square.
he hasn't even started the job yet.
so, the circumstances are 'imperfect'.

true, he is to an extent responsible for the 'expectations' of him, by others. he is not responsible i think for any sense of 'realism' or for 'critical reasoning' within the electorate.

presentation of 'facts' is another matter. but hey, we DO enjoy a free media right? so we should be covered, should we not

Viv’ La Différence
while it lasts

I am not certain I can agree with the idea that he won "fair and square."

The last election was like a tag team wrestling match in which the referee(s) (the Media) not only refused to see any wrongdoing on the part of Obama, but actively tripped and headlocked McCain so that Obama could hit him.


There was no coverage of the Voter registration fraud, or the illegal campaign contributions, virtually no research into Obama's back ground etc.


Having All of the Media outlets (including movie stars and rock stars) proclaiming their own personal opinions on the Megaphone of the airwaves was equivilant to probably half a billion dollars worth of Free Advertisement for Obama.

The Media would take every false story about McCain/Pallin and amplify it and repeat it.


Maybe you see things differently, but I can't conceive of this election being even remotely fair and square. Neither was the one in 1992,1994,2000,2004,2006,2008.

Actually, I can't remeber a fair election in which the Media didn't try to pitch their candidate while disguising it as news.


David

[choff]

The old joke about Canada that one US ambassador make was that the founding fathers wanted to create a country with French culture, British politics and American know how. Instead we ended up with American culture, French politics and British know how.
Seriously if a NAU took place you would be adding 30 million people on the left side of the Democratic party, who would drag in a national health care program, workers compesation programs and restrictions on litigation in general. I'm not sure many conservative US citizens would like that.

[djolds1]

guys, i do wish you'd give Obama a break.
he won fair and square.
he hasn't even started the job yet.
so, the circumstances are 'imperfect'.

Yes, he won, and won fairly. D*mn impressive, a breathtaking & breathtakingly disciplined come from nowhere campaign.

That said, expectations for him have been hyped past the heliopause. The only place left for him to go is down.

and some of us just lost our estates.

borg do not dodge issues. borg create them.

i dare say you are right. there are many historical perspectives.

I don't grok the context or your meaning with these.

As to an age or reason, odds are that the 20th century was the high point of fetishized Western rationalism. A solid case can be made that the collapse of Rationalism's Quasi-Religion (Bolshevism) is the herald for a renaissance of faith. Humanities scholarship in the West becomes ever more and more absurd. Europe and their cultural brethren in the US are committing slow demographic suicide. The breeders (i.e. religious) will inherit the Earth. Darwin can be a bitch.

are you sure about that?

Pretty sure. The expectation that the age of Western rationality will continue as is indefinitely is a linear projection. Estimates of that type tend to be spectacularly wrong every time. Civilized human history moves in cycles, and the Waring States Period of Western civilization is wrapping up. The age of fetishized rationality has died concurrently in all previous civilizations at the same point.

Duane

[djolds1]

It's only submission if you don't have a say.

You haven't been to a dungeon recently, have you?

If other states join the US in some kind of superstate, the get to vote in the new policymaking apparatus. I'd think that, compared to current domination by the US, that would be an improvement.

It would be pro forma, without substance. A primus inter pares would not surrender that preeminence for the sake of fairness.

No, they don't have a population half the size of the US. It's only one third.

Thought it was 150 million. My mistake.

That'd still be smaller than the EU, with a slightly smaller economy, but very close and with good growth potential. It would help us keep a larger economic and military advantage over China as they develop over the next few decades.

Possibly. Tho IMO the US can swing most of that without creating a semi-state version of NAFTA that constrains its power.

We may not have the Romulan Star Empire to galvanize us, but the Earth is a big place.

IMO the largest possible Identity Blocs are Continental/Civilizational. Not Global.

[djolds1]

Ben Franklin's "Penny a day" was not an aberration.

i dare say.

At the same time you have the tradition of civil liberty growing out of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. And the history of firm religious conviction first illustrated by the Great Awakening of the 1740s.

I was under the impression that a tradition of 'liberty' has been around at least since the Greeks and probably a lot longer along side any notion of 'slavery' or 'illegitimate' power - i wasn't aware that America had invented it. i am so sorry.

as to religious awakenings - Islam is enjoying spectacular success at present, far from dwindling into historical curiosity as it ought, as all religion ought. the rest of us awoke into an 'age of reason', so i am told. some of us haven't yet made the transition. they will be assimilated. resistance is futile,

Point I'm trying to make is that the "tomato base" culture of the US is English Settler. The rest are minor spices added to the soup.

Duane