TW: I posted recently about the Scotland potentially wanting devolve away from the UK. This piece suggests the UK joining the U.S. I like the concept. I have always thought the Canadians would make for a nice expansion as well. Am tired of the EU claiming to be the world's biggest economy only because they keep adding new countries.
Will it happen? Of course not, the Republicans would freak as we would be adding about 8-16 new Democratic senators and a commensurate amount of representatives. Not to mention the Brits and Canadians might have concerns (I mean the piece might have been written with a bit of sarcasm).
From the Independent:
"...Becoming the 51st State of the Union would be a colossal promotion. There would be downsides to yielding what passes for our sovereignty, of course. The Sovereign would have to go, and most of us would miss her and the amusement her family selflessly provides. Any residual misplaced sense of superiority would need to be jettisoned as well.
But the upsides would more than dwarf the regrets. At a stroke we would inherit a written constitution – and what a constitution – guaranteeing such essentials for a functioning democracy as fixed-term government, proper checks and balances to executive power, and freedom of speech. We'd be defended from the worst ravages of economic collapse by belonging to what will, with the euro facing mounting pressure from the imminent bankruptcy of member countries, remain the world's premier reserve currency. We would have a political leader to revere, for eight years at least. And in the US tradition of slightly out-of-the-way cities holding the honour, we could make Norwich our state capital, with the Union Jack replaced as flag by a pot of Colman's Mustard.
...Now there will be objections, and not just from royalists. Some, fretful of our place in the pecking idea, will feel slighted at ranking 32nd in size between Louisiana and Mississippi. But New York state's square mileage isn't much more, so size couldn't matter less. Others may think us too distant to make it practicable. Yet we're only a few hundred miles further away from the US mainland than Hawaii – a state with a useful recent record of producing Presidents despite having four electoral college votes to the hundred or so that our population would merit.
...It is ever more apparent that on its current path, or rather trapped in its current stasis, Britain is absolutely stuffed. Whatever ersatz prestige devolved from London's status as global financial services capital has gone, while the tacky veneer of the "young country" of Mr Tony Blair's lively imagination faded long ago. Britain is a befuddled geriatric, roughly cared for by a political class without energy, original thought or compassion, its populace too fatigued and apathetic to care about the incessant infringements on personal liberty.
....Dribbling and muttering incoherently about the glory days when the map was suffused with pink and the sun never set, clinging to the permanent seat on the Security Council like the second childhood security blanket it is...
...All of which begs the obvious question of what could possibly be in it for the United States to have us live with her in a granny flat 3,000 miles round the corner. Apart from the strategic value of adding a gigantic air base in western Europe to the control she already exerts over our "independent" nuclear deterrent, the health tourism possibilities might appeal..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-turn-us-into-the-51st-state-why-not-1637570.html
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