Methinks you may have twisted this around a bit. Are they being jailed because they won't work under any contract, or because they aren't abiding by their old contract while negotiating a new one?
The link you gave didn't answer that question, only an impassioned "human interest" story. I'd need a heck of a lot more than that to make up my mind on the situation.
To be anal, there are a few more countries in North America than the three largest, even if you ignore the Caribbean.
At any rate, NAFTA is free trade area, as the name suggests. It is not an uber-government. At best it's a confederation looser even than the UN. Neither of the three members are all that interested in losing national sovereignty by trying to make NAFTA more than it is. Hell, all the member nations are made up of semi-autonomous states/provinces as it is.
See, these are the kinds of friendly, mutual relations you can have with each other when you're able to go for over a century without warring with your neighbors.:)
"Afterall, when something breaks on a US Naval vessel, they have to have the crew paddle the ship back to dock, right?"
If you want to make analogies between Starfleet and the USN, let's talk about how long refueling takes on a nuclear engine. Replacing a warp core sounds like something that takes a few months in drydock.
"Only recently did the government declassify footage and documents of all the failed US space missions."
All manned US missions were well-publicized, with launch dates announced to the press in adavance. While aspects of their missions may or may not have been kept classified (depending on the mission in question), we always knew who was going up, when, and for how long.
As for the police state approach, the Soviet Union made no mention of Gagarin until it was confirmed he was safely on the ground, which is probably what will happen when the first yuhangyuan goes into orbit and then lands safely.
If flying over the Atlantic is so profitable, why such a large gap between the Wright Brothers and Lindburgh?
If the internet was so profitable, why did it take decades for anybody to even notice its existance?
If the steam engine would revolutionize the world as we know it, why were there several millenia between the first development of one and the real adoption of it?
"Should they be spending on something else to solve other problems in China?"
Yeah, instead they should be focusing on something that can stir nationalistic pride in the people, something to help them endure the coming hard times for the good of the state. Wait a second...
It's a shame that China is taking the classic police state stance of "We'll tell the press about it once it's over successfully, or not at all if its a failure" with these launches. Because the People's Army Navy has to send specialized tracking ships to around the world in order to keep in contact with the capsule, both foriegn intelligence and foreign news agencies know of a pending launch long before the rocket is put on the pad. And I haven't even mentioned NORAD yet.
With all that going against them, if there is a failure it will be all over the internet long before the state officially confirms or denies that there ever was a launch. That can't be good for their credibility...
Freedom & Power not mutually exclusive
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Freedom or Power?
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· Score: 2
I don't particularly care for the wording used here. IMO, what they call "freedom" is actually power given to the end-user of the software, and "power" is power given to the producer of said software. From the looks of it, these two would rather have all power rest with the consumer and none with the producer.
"Freedom" is a bit of an amorphous concept, pretty hard for most people to define. In this case "freedom" should be defined as "free from the abuses of other peoples' power." The consumer should have some freedom to do with the software as they see fit, and the producer should also have similar freedoms. The trick is balancing the two against each other and making sure they both have equal representation in deciding how the software is used.
(Sounds an awful lot like political theory, don't it?)
The whole freedom vs. power debate is entirely relative to the position of the observer. To the folks at, say, Microsoft, an OEM license is viewed as Microsoft's "freedom" to distribute their software as they (and perhaps the market) see fit. Being human, they can't help but see the consumer as someone who should give selflessly of themselves to continue to support the producer. Take that last sentence, flip-flop "producer" and "consumer," and you have GNU's viewpoint.
It's the 21st century. We know that concentrating power entirely with the wealthy resource owners is just as bad as concentrating power entirely with the consumers. We've had over two centuries of wars and tens (if not hundreds) of millions of deaths over this. We should know by now that the best solution is a compromise. The only question that SHOULD remain is where the best compromise lies (something that nation-states are still debating).
At any rate, this whole "power vs. freedom" line in my opinion ranks right up there with "freedom to innovate." It's called "propoganda." Treat it as such.
That's nice. Now if only they let consumers have the option of not having to have one of those damned crappy Conexant winmodems. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if those machines with Linux installed still have said winmodems in them...
"So the french don't have that innate distrust of the State. Thus, they not only do not continually question what the State does, but they don't view working for the State as something demeaning, so the best minds are naturally attracted to work for the State so everyone benefits."
You seem to have neglected something here, though. I don't live in the United State of America. While in France the question of working for the state may be binary, potential government employes have to ask themselves whether they want to work for their state or federal government. And they are both mutually exclusive.
"They're catholics"
And we're not? This particular argument only holds true if any enclaves of American Catholics are weak and dispersed at best. However, I was born and raised in Maryland (a state founded by Catholics and still has a strong Catholic history... Note that the state flag isn't properly flown without a stylized cross atop the flagpole) and I currently live in Louisiana (another state with a strong Catholic history due to their French history), yet neither of these states have become a France in miniature, before or after embracing their Constitution-mandated republican governments. As for the embrace of technology of these two states, they couldn't be more different despite their shared religious history.
At any rate, it's interesting to note that while us mere English-speaking nations have an innate distrust of state, the French seem to have ended up with an innate distrust of religion. I'm curious now about which one is "more better."
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Some of the things mentioned that this French government site can do are either things shared between the state and the feds, or just aren't mentioned in the Constitution and rest solely with the state. For example:
"pay taxes online"
If I recall correctly, you can pretty much do that already with your federal income taxes already through the IRS website, but it isn't the job of the IRS to collect state income taxes, or any other taxes levied by the state. Talk to your comptroller, or at the very least go to the website of your state government. For me, I'd have to find the Louisiana website for information on paying Louisiana income and property taxes.
"register a child for a state school"
Beyond those offered by the military for their dependants and the five federal academies, I don't think there is such a thing as a federal school. Elementary and high schools are usually the responsibility of the local government (county or city), while they only have to answer to state guidelines and standards. If you want to register your kid to attend local schools, talk to the local school board. They're at your county seat, not at Washington D.C.
"reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time"
For commercial vehicles, while there are federal rules and regulations for your vehicle, it is up to the state to enforce them. As for personal vehicles, my title, registration and license plate are from the State of Louisiana, and the brake tag I got from St. Charles Parish. Frankly, I wouldn't want to have to deal with a city almost a thousand miles away for something as simple as my car. And if neither of those two governments provide what you're looking for, the only think you might be justified in complaining to the US Congress about is that they haven't set aside any money for state and local governments to set up such services.
So why can't we interact with the US federal government in the same way? At least 90% of the interactions your average citizen has with the federal government are with either the IRS or the USPS. Both of these organizations have very well-done, informative and useful websites. For anything else I suggest you check with your state website and/or see if your local government maintains a website.
What about computers as artist? There's an interesting article here about a computer that seems to be able to make creative paintings.
Re:Their definition of "fraud" is a little thin...
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The PayPal Phenomenon
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· Score: 1
Did that too. Only bad part about that is that I'll never know how much they're suffering.:)
Their definition of "fraud" is a little thin...
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The PayPal Phenomenon
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I recently got burned on an eBay auction I paid for through PayPal and learned the hard way just what PayPal considers fraud.
I was putting together an old laptop for a friend of mine and tried to buy an old retail copy of Windows 95 to put on it. Color me strange, but I was actually trying to do things the legal way. To make a long story short, I paid for retail and got OEM.
After trying to talk the seller into a refund for a week or so, I gave up and took the matter to PayPal. Blah blah blah retail was pictured but got OEM instead blah blah blah violates Microsoft's license blah blah blah claimed to be "fully legal" but wasn't... (I didn't point out that if I wanted to use Windows 95 illegally I wouldn't have paid $35 for it)
After a few days of their "investigation process" I got a form letter from them telling me that, because I actually got something, they won't get involved. To quote it:
Our Buyer Complaint Policy does not apply to disputes about the attributes or quality of goods received. As a result, we cannot reverse the transaction or issue a refund.
PayPal is not the venue that lists the item and we do not act as an escrow service. Because the item is not advertised or listed by our service, we are not in the position to verify the quality of an item delivered as opposed to what was advertised. We recommend first contacting the seller's customer service email address, which is listed above. You may wish to contact your auction site regarding the dispute; as the venue that lists the item, they may be able to help you, or contact a third party mediator, such as Square Trade.
So even though the attribute in question was "legal/illegal," it's Somebody Else's Problem (TM).
I could understand their position on this if it weren't for the fact that, if I had mailed a money order instead (ie. used a competitor), this would have fallen under the category of mail fraud. But instead I'm now stuck with waiting for eBay's manditory 30-day waiting period to end so I can complain to them and see if anything happens.
Right now it seems that PayPal is working hard to make sure I get my shiney, over-priced, drink coaster with the Windows logo on it, while my best bet to get most of my money back would be to take the guy to small claims court in New Jersey. Thanks PayPal!
"because every governement knows exactly how far to go with this"
The question is "How can you be sure?" I'm not saying "You can't trust the US government with that kind of power," I'm saying "No government should be given that much power for any reason." Whether those in charge seem to be wearing white hats or not, the negative possibilities seem to heavily outweigh any positive ones, and by the time the bad side-effects become apparent, it's already well too late to do anything about them.
"In America, you have a two-party, corporations-always-win democracy (that's right, hit me for flamebait)."
Calling the US a democracy in the same vein as western European countries doesn't seem to fit. We're more republican than democratic, and the main reason federal politics get watered down to two real parties is that our federal government just isn't as important to us as national governments are to Europeans. The federal government only really deals with interstate and international issues, so the state and local governments are much more important to the individual.
After all, it's been less than a century that federal senators have been chosen by direct popular vote, where before they were chosen/appointed by the state government in a similar manner to the way a national government might appoint an ambassador to the UN.
""reasons for not trusting authority". I think you are referring to Germany. The fact you have been modded up to five shows very well there were few european moderators about. It is flamebait, but I will restrain myself."
Germany is one of the examples I thought of, but not the only one. Other examples include:
The treatment of the Irish before and during the Great War by the UK. Why try to weed out a few militant dissidents when you can try to crush the will of the people through a bloody military police action instead? There's a reason why the majority ended up wanting independence.
The tsarist and then communist governments in Russia. The new boss wasn't much different from the old boss as far as caring for the proles.
Germany wasn't the only facist government that came about after the Great War. The Italians had their own, the Spanish had their own, the Austrians were quite willing to accept the German government, the Romanians... well, it's kinda hard to tell with them, but they didn't seem to mind very much the governmental practicies of their close allies.
Skipping forward after WWII and recontrstuction a bit, most European powers divested themselves of their colonies, with varying results. While the US also had some imperialist colonies here and there, the Philippines were eventually allowed to leave by their own free will without requiring a bloody popular revolution and they have yet to make claims that the US government practiced slavery as late as the 20th century. In stark contrast to, say, how many north African and southeast Asian countries feel about France...
And finally I'll just touch on that famous Austrian Joerg Haider. It's not him or his "Austria for Austrians" rhetoric that's worth mentioning, it's how many people that agree with him and people like him throughout Europe, especially after September.
"The EU shouldn't make you laugh, and also shouldn't frighten you."
The EU made me laugh because of the ways they're trying to tie some very disparate peoples and cultures into a relatively strong (compared to the UN) centralized government of sorts. They now frighten me because they seem to be getting closer to how the communists did it in Yugoslavia after WWII.
Let me tell you a thing about world politics and relations. You can pretty much say that there are only three real ways to have influence on those around you (and they're all tied to each other): Military, politics (both direct relations and as an example of government), and economics. While every country has some influence on its neighbors to varying degrees, only a handful of countries have a global reach, and even fewer have such an influence in all three areas.
Today, those countries are pretty much limited to the US, four or five European countries, and maybe China (they only have global influence in two ways at best). Everybody else, for whatever reason, doesn't care much about the world beyond its borders. India doesn't much care about Argentina. South Africa doesn't have much concern about relations between the two Koreas. Austria, beyond its relations with the EU, doesn't hold much interest in the policies of Vicente Fox. And New Zealand barely has any real influence beyond Australia.
And Canada doesn't have many concerns outside North America. Most of its international relations happen on the coat-tails of US policy (see NATO and NORAD for examples).
I took the tone of voice I had because Canada is essentially on the sidelines in the "Hey! Look at ME!" game. It is an example of a regional power inadvertantly beating a global power at it's own game. Canada isn't trying to show the rest of the world the goodness of constitutional monarchies, the RCN isn't being deployed in world-circling, gunboat diplomacy tours, and Chretien isn't always running around the globe trying to force open more markets while prostituting his own country as one. You can't say those things about France, Germany, the UK, China, or the US.
Now, if you'd RATHER be considered a pompous, saber-rattling neo-empire, go ahead and take what I said as an insult.
Back when BellSouth were the first to bring ADSL into our area, we had an average of 8 Mbps with spikes up to 12 at certain times of the day, served by DHCP for about $40/month. Now it's PPPoE at 1.5 Mbps at best for a little more money. And you can't see why I'm considering saying "to hell with it" and forsake them for a modem? Especially when it's a heck of a lot easier to change providers with a modem?
"national ID cards" "you must register where you live at the local public authority"
Perhaps you need to try opening your eyes... or at least learn what is meant by "Big Brother:" a government keeping an eye on its citizens for little reason beyond "their own protection."
As for some of the other more interesting one-liners...
"our economic wealth is greater"
By what measure? I'm assuming it's not by GDP (in which caes you're blinder than I thought), but even if you go by GDP-per-capita, we've got every major western European country beat by about $10,000.
Belgium - $25,300
Denmark - $25,500
Finland - $22,900
France - $24,400
Germany - $23,400
Italy - $22,100
Netherlands - $24,400
Norway - $27,700
Portugal - $15,800
Spain - $18,000
Sweden - $22,200
Switzerland - $28,600
UK - $22,800
USA - $36,200
The only European country I could find that beats the US is Luxembourg with its $36,400 per capita. Even CANADA and its $24,800 manages to beat all the G8 members in that list.
"There might be reasons for this but they belong to the 18th century not to the 21th."
The reason is "decentralization of power due to distrust of authority." And several European countries through the course of the 20th century have had very good examples of why authority shouldn't be trusted.
And since I'm going to get modded down to Offtopic/Flamebait anyway...
The EU and its member states are already giving examples of the abuse of power and trampling of personal rights this early into the 21st century. New York City and Washington, D.C. were attacked, and yet its the European politicans that are talking about shutting down mosques and denying entrance to their countries to any and all Arabs...
The EU used to make me laugh. Now they're frightening me. In my opinion, "The Europeans are doing just fine with it" is an argument against the US doing something, not for it.
I think most of you are over-reacting to this. They're talking about privatizing the manned space fleet, but that doesn't mean they have plans to deck the shuttle fleet out with ads as if they intended to participate in the Daytona 500.
The USPS has been semi-independant from the federal government since 1971. The Postmaster General is no longer a cabinet position, so they don't have to directly deal with whatever political party is in power in Congress. They're now self-sufficient, supported only by the income they make on the fees they charge and not by federal tax dollars. And yet I have yet to see any corporate logo on any mail trucks, nor have they been bought out by UPS.
So what's the problem if we set up the shuttle fleet the same way?
Slashdot Mirror
Why would the Navy do that? Are they so strapped for cash that they're willing to sell the oldest commissioned warship afloat?
Methinks you may have twisted this around a bit. Are they being jailed because they won't work under any contract, or because they aren't abiding by their old contract while negotiating a new one?
The link you gave didn't answer that question, only an impassioned "human interest" story. I'd need a heck of a lot more than that to make up my mind on the situation.
To be anal, there are a few more countries in North America than the three largest, even if you ignore the Caribbean.
:)
At any rate, NAFTA is free trade area, as the name suggests. It is not an uber-government. At best it's a confederation looser even than the UN. Neither of the three members are all that interested in losing national sovereignty by trying to make NAFTA more than it is. Hell, all the member nations are made up of semi-autonomous states/provinces as it is.
See, these are the kinds of friendly, mutual relations you can have with each other when you're able to go for over a century without warring with your neighbors.
"Afterall, when something breaks on a US Naval vessel, they have to have the crew paddle the ship back to dock, right?"
If you want to make analogies between Starfleet and the USN, let's talk about how long refueling takes on a nuclear engine. Replacing a warp core sounds like something that takes a few months in drydock.
As I recall from Insurrection, the Enterprise had to eject its warp core. Without that, the Neutral Zone is a loooooong way off...
"Galileo arose from European concerns about falling behind the United States technologically."
OK class, who can tell me when GPS was first deployed? And when will Galileo be deployed at its earliest?
Our next topic of discussion is the importantce of picking proper verb tense...
"Only recently did the government declassify footage and documents of all the failed US space missions."
All manned US missions were well-publicized, with launch dates announced to the press in adavance. While aspects of their missions may or may not have been kept classified (depending on the mission in question), we always knew who was going up, when, and for how long.
As for the police state approach, the Soviet Union made no mention of Gagarin until it was confirmed he was safely on the ground, which is probably what will happen when the first yuhangyuan goes into orbit and then lands safely.
Good. We've grown too soft and cozy in the space arena as it is, especially when you consider how much we as a nation rely on it.
If flying over the Atlantic is so profitable, why such a large gap between the Wright Brothers and Lindburgh?
If the internet was so profitable, why did it take decades for anybody to even notice its existance?
If the steam engine would revolutionize the world as we know it, why were there several millenia between the first development of one and the real adoption of it?
"What exactly is there to do on the moon?"
Build a factory and tell the EPA and Greenpeace to go fuck themselves. Next question.
"Should they be spending on something else to solve other problems in China?"
Yeah, instead they should be focusing on something that can stir nationalistic pride in the people, something to help them endure the coming hard times for the good of the state. Wait a second...
It's a shame that China is taking the classic police state stance of "We'll tell the press about it once it's over successfully, or not at all if its a failure" with these launches. Because the People's Army Navy has to send specialized tracking ships to around the world in order to keep in contact with the capsule, both foriegn intelligence and foreign news agencies know of a pending launch long before the rocket is put on the pad. And I haven't even mentioned NORAD yet.
With all that going against them, if there is a failure it will be all over the internet long before the state officially confirms or denies that there ever was a launch. That can't be good for their credibility...
I don't particularly care for the wording used here. IMO, what they call "freedom" is actually power given to the end-user of the software, and "power" is power given to the producer of said software. From the looks of it, these two would rather have all power rest with the consumer and none with the producer.
"Freedom" is a bit of an amorphous concept, pretty hard for most people to define. In this case "freedom" should be defined as "free from the abuses of other peoples' power." The consumer should have some freedom to do with the software as they see fit, and the producer should also have similar freedoms. The trick is balancing the two against each other and making sure they both have equal representation in deciding how the software is used.
(Sounds an awful lot like political theory, don't it?)
The whole freedom vs. power debate is entirely relative to the position of the observer. To the folks at, say, Microsoft, an OEM license is viewed as Microsoft's "freedom" to distribute their software as they (and perhaps the market) see fit. Being human, they can't help but see the consumer as someone who should give selflessly of themselves to continue to support the producer. Take that last sentence, flip-flop "producer" and "consumer," and you have GNU's viewpoint.
It's the 21st century. We know that concentrating power entirely with the wealthy resource owners is just as bad as concentrating power entirely with the consumers. We've had over two centuries of wars and tens (if not hundreds) of millions of deaths over this. We should know by now that the best solution is a compromise. The only question that SHOULD remain is where the best compromise lies (something that nation-states are still debating).
At any rate, this whole "power vs. freedom" line in my opinion ranks right up there with "freedom to innovate." It's called "propoganda." Treat it as such.
That's nice. Now if only they let consumers have the option of not having to have one of those damned crappy Conexant winmodems. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if those machines with Linux installed still have said winmodems in them...
"So the french don't have that innate distrust of the State. Thus, they not only do not continually question what the State does, but they don't view working for the State as something demeaning, so the best minds are naturally attracted to work for the State so everyone benefits."
You seem to have neglected something here, though. I don't live in the United State of America. While in France the question of working for the state may be binary, potential government employes have to ask themselves whether they want to work for their state or federal government. And they are both mutually exclusive.
"They're catholics"
And we're not? This particular argument only holds true if any enclaves of American Catholics are weak and dispersed at best. However, I was born and raised in Maryland (a state founded by Catholics and still has a strong Catholic history... Note that the state flag isn't properly flown without a stylized cross atop the flagpole) and I currently live in Louisiana (another state with a strong Catholic history due to their French history), yet neither of these states have become a France in miniature, before or after embracing their Constitution-mandated republican governments. As for the embrace of technology of these two states, they couldn't be more different despite their shared religious history.
At any rate, it's interesting to note that while us mere English-speaking nations have an innate distrust of state, the French seem to have ended up with an innate distrust of religion. I'm curious now about which one is "more better."
Some of the things mentioned that this French government site can do are either things shared between the state and the feds, or just aren't mentioned in the Constitution and rest solely with the state. For example:
"pay taxes online"
If I recall correctly, you can pretty much do that already with your federal income taxes already through the IRS website, but it isn't the job of the IRS to collect state income taxes, or any other taxes levied by the state. Talk to your comptroller, or at the very least go to the website of your state government. For me, I'd have to find the Louisiana website for information on paying Louisiana income and property taxes.
"register a child for a state school"
Beyond those offered by the military for their dependants and the five federal academies, I don't think there is such a thing as a federal school. Elementary and high schools are usually the responsibility of the local government (county or city), while they only have to answer to state guidelines and standards. If you want to register your kid to attend local schools, talk to the local school board. They're at your county seat, not at Washington D.C.
"reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time"
For commercial vehicles, while there are federal rules and regulations for your vehicle, it is up to the state to enforce them. As for personal vehicles, my title, registration and license plate are from the State of Louisiana, and the brake tag I got from St. Charles Parish. Frankly, I wouldn't want to have to deal with a city almost a thousand miles away for something as simple as my car. And if neither of those two governments provide what you're looking for, the only think you might be justified in complaining to the US Congress about is that they haven't set aside any money for state and local governments to set up such services.
So why can't we interact with the US federal government in the same way? At least 90% of the interactions your average citizen has with the federal government are with either the IRS or the USPS. Both of these organizations have very well-done, informative and useful websites. For anything else I suggest you check with your state website and/or see if your local government maintains a website.
What about computers as artist? There's an interesting article here about a computer that seems to be able to make creative paintings.
Did that too. Only bad part about that is that I'll never know how much they're suffering. :)
I was putting together an old laptop for a friend of mine and tried to buy an old retail copy of Windows 95 to put on it. Color me strange, but I was actually trying to do things the legal way. To make a long story short, I paid for retail and got OEM.
After trying to talk the seller into a refund for a week or so, I gave up and took the matter to PayPal. Blah blah blah retail was pictured but got OEM instead blah blah blah violates Microsoft's license blah blah blah claimed to be "fully legal" but wasn't... (I didn't point out that if I wanted to use Windows 95 illegally I wouldn't have paid $35 for it)
After a few days of their "investigation process" I got a form letter from them telling me that, because I actually got something, they won't get involved. To quote it:
So even though the attribute in question was "legal/illegal," it's Somebody Else's Problem (TM).
I could understand their position on this if it weren't for the fact that, if I had mailed a money order instead (ie. used a competitor), this would have fallen under the category of mail fraud. But instead I'm now stuck with waiting for eBay's manditory 30-day waiting period to end so I can complain to them and see if anything happens.
Right now it seems that PayPal is working hard to make sure I get my shiney, over-priced, drink coaster with the Windows logo on it, while my best bet to get most of my money back would be to take the guy to small claims court in New Jersey. Thanks PayPal!
"because every governement knows exactly how far to go with this"
The question is "How can you be sure?" I'm not saying "You can't trust the US government with that kind of power," I'm saying "No government should be given that much power for any reason." Whether those in charge seem to be wearing white hats or not, the negative possibilities seem to heavily outweigh any positive ones, and by the time the bad side-effects become apparent, it's already well too late to do anything about them.
"In America, you have a two-party, corporations-always-win democracy (that's right, hit me for flamebait)."
Calling the US a democracy in the same vein as western European countries doesn't seem to fit. We're more republican than democratic, and the main reason federal politics get watered down to two real parties is that our federal government just isn't as important to us as national governments are to Europeans. The federal government only really deals with interstate and international issues, so the state and local governments are much more important to the individual.
After all, it's been less than a century that federal senators have been chosen by direct popular vote, where before they were chosen/appointed by the state government in a similar manner to the way a national government might appoint an ambassador to the UN.
""reasons for not trusting authority". I think you are referring to Germany. The fact you have been modded up to five shows very well there were few european moderators about. It is flamebait, but I will restrain myself."
Germany is one of the examples I thought of, but not the only one. Other examples include:
The treatment of the Irish before and during the Great War by the UK. Why try to weed out a few militant dissidents when you can try to crush the will of the people through a bloody military police action instead? There's a reason why the majority ended up wanting independence.
The tsarist and then communist governments in Russia. The new boss wasn't much different from the old boss as far as caring for the proles.
Germany wasn't the only facist government that came about after the Great War. The Italians had their own, the Spanish had their own, the Austrians were quite willing to accept the German government, the Romanians... well, it's kinda hard to tell with them, but they didn't seem to mind very much the governmental practicies of their close allies.
Skipping forward after WWII and recontrstuction a bit, most European powers divested themselves of their colonies, with varying results. While the US also had some imperialist colonies here and there, the Philippines were eventually allowed to leave by their own free will without requiring a bloody popular revolution and they have yet to make claims that the US government practiced slavery as late as the 20th century. In stark contrast to, say, how many north African and southeast Asian countries feel about France...
And finally I'll just touch on that famous Austrian Joerg Haider. It's not him or his "Austria for Austrians" rhetoric that's worth mentioning, it's how many people that agree with him and people like him throughout Europe, especially after September.
"The EU shouldn't make you laugh, and also shouldn't frighten you."
The EU made me laugh because of the ways they're trying to tie some very disparate peoples and cultures into a relatively strong (compared to the UN) centralized government of sorts. They now frighten me because they seem to be getting closer to how the communists did it in Yugoslavia after WWII.
"Makes us sound like a third rate country"
Let me tell you a thing about world politics and relations. You can pretty much say that there are only three real ways to have influence on those around you (and they're all tied to each other): Military, politics (both direct relations and as an example of government), and economics. While every country has some influence on its neighbors to varying degrees, only a handful of countries have a global reach, and even fewer have such an influence in all three areas.
Today, those countries are pretty much limited to the US, four or five European countries, and maybe China (they only have global influence in two ways at best). Everybody else, for whatever reason, doesn't care much about the world beyond its borders. India doesn't much care about Argentina. South Africa doesn't have much concern about relations between the two Koreas. Austria, beyond its relations with the EU, doesn't hold much interest in the policies of Vicente Fox. And New Zealand barely has any real influence beyond Australia.
And Canada doesn't have many concerns outside North America. Most of its international relations happen on the coat-tails of US policy (see NATO and NORAD for examples).
I took the tone of voice I had because Canada is essentially on the sidelines in the "Hey! Look at ME!" game. It is an example of a regional power inadvertantly beating a global power at it's own game. Canada isn't trying to show the rest of the world the goodness of constitutional monarchies, the RCN isn't being deployed in world-circling, gunboat diplomacy tours, and Chretien isn't always running around the globe trying to force open more markets while prostituting his own country as one. You can't say those things about France, Germany, the UK, China, or the US.
Now, if you'd RATHER be considered a pompous, saber-rattling neo-empire, go ahead and take what I said as an insult.
Back when BellSouth were the first to bring ADSL into our area, we had an average of 8 Mbps with spikes up to 12 at certain times of the day, served by DHCP for about $40/month. Now it's PPPoE at 1.5 Mbps at best for a little more money. And you can't see why I'm considering saying "to hell with it" and forsake them for a modem? Especially when it's a heck of a lot easier to change providers with a modem?
First we have...
"no big brother in sight"
And then we see...
"national ID cards"
"you must register where you live at the local public authority"
Perhaps you need to try opening your eyes... or at least learn what is meant by "Big Brother:" a government keeping an eye on its citizens for little reason beyond "their own protection."
As for some of the other more interesting one-liners...
"our economic wealth is greater"
By what measure? I'm assuming it's not by GDP (in which caes you're blinder than I thought), but even if you go by GDP-per-capita, we've got every major western European country beat by about $10,000.
Belgium - $25,300
Denmark - $25,500
Finland - $22,900
France - $24,400
Germany - $23,400
Italy - $22,100
Netherlands - $24,400
Norway - $27,700
Portugal - $15,800
Spain - $18,000
Sweden - $22,200
Switzerland - $28,600
UK - $22,800
USA - $36,200
The only European country I could find that beats the US is Luxembourg with its $36,400 per capita. Even CANADA and its $24,800 manages to beat all the G8 members in that list.
"There might be reasons for this but they belong to the 18th century not to the 21th."
The reason is "decentralization of power due to distrust of authority." And several European countries through the course of the 20th century have had very good examples of why authority shouldn't be trusted.
And since I'm going to get modded down to Offtopic/Flamebait anyway...
The EU and its member states are already giving examples of the abuse of power and trampling of personal rights this early into the 21st century. New York City and Washington, D.C. were attacked, and yet its the European politicans that are talking about shutting down mosques and denying entrance to their countries to any and all Arabs...
The EU used to make me laugh. Now they're frightening me. In my opinion, "The Europeans are doing just fine with it" is an argument against the US doing something, not for it.
I think most of you are over-reacting to this. They're talking about privatizing the manned space fleet, but that doesn't mean they have plans to deck the shuttle fleet out with ads as if they intended to participate in the Daytona 500.
The USPS has been semi-independant from the federal government since 1971. The Postmaster General is no longer a cabinet position, so they don't have to directly deal with whatever political party is in power in Congress. They're now self-sufficient, supported only by the income they make on the fees they charge and not by federal tax dollars. And yet I have yet to see any corporate logo on any mail trucks, nor have they been bought out by UPS.
So what's the problem if we set up the shuttle fleet the same way?
No, see, in order to have a coup, people have to actually care who's in power. And judging from the latest poll numbers...