Why do you hate the USA?

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It is much more complex: The EU is not state (or sovereign) in the sense of international law, like the US; but it neither just a cooperation of states, like NAFTA. It has its own laws and supreme court, but rely in the execution of this laws on the national authorities. It does not have a constitution, but is formed by intercepted international treaties. It does has borders, but they are not that clear: Some countries are not in the EU, but use the Euro; some countries are are not in the EU, but member of the Schengen-Agreement with a close cooperation in questions of justice and internal security, whilst other EU-Members are not member of this agreement (UK and Ireland). The court in Luxembourg does not act formally as a Supreme Court, but can overwrite all court decisions and national laws (including national constitutions) if the court thinks that they are not in-line with EU-law.

The structure of the EU is hard to put into the post 1648 term of sovereignty and is closer to the Holy Roman Empire than to any other political structure known. You may read Jan Zielonka, Europe as Empire, Oxford University Press, 2006. I wrote for myself a text regarding this issue in which I looked more into detail in the structure of the court systems of the EU and Holy Roman Empire and I found astonishing parallels even in formal details.



"Americans" germinally? Was there not the attend to introduce a social system in 1960s? Was not the question of general health insurance one of the topics of Obama in the recent election?

BS. There is a thread here on water privatisation in the states! We have had private water companies for a long time yet you can't get over the fact we have a public health system. Get over it.

What? The central power of the Holy Roman Empire was hardly in the position to impose it's own law within the realm. The administration of this Empire was one of the most decentralized possible. Decision making was a formalized process of finding agreement of all involved: No majority votes on issues of the constitution and on religion.

The central administration was split between the Empire and Arch-Chancellery in Mainz. But even here there an extra layer via the Imperial Circles in which the local states (and we talk about 1200 of those) elected a Capitan ("Hauptmann") which was the link between the states and the central authorities. The highest court, the Imperial Chamber Court, was an independent court on which even the Emperor was only a party. You may google a bit for "Statutum in favorem principum" of 1231 or for the description Samuel von Pufendorf made in his book "De Statu Imperii Germanici" of the 1690s.

IdahoAspie while you are at it why don't you privatize your fire service, especially in large cities? How about privatizing your police service would you go with that? Sell off your army. C'mon don't be such a pinko communist.

If you find yourself fighting imaginary enemies it might be good to take a good hard look at yourself. You are not better than anyone else. No country is completely free, like I said in many respect China has a freer trade then the US and Europe.

My thoughts exactly...

Works for me.

Where I grew up the Fire Brigade was just that... the Fire Brigade. A totally Volunteer Organization.

Law Enforcement was a Sherrif & Deputy/Investigator. As is fitting, their only job vis-a-vis "protecting" society came AFTER the crime was alreaddy committed and they were required to investigate, but more often came after the crime was thwarted by the would-be victim who was appropriately armed to deal with such exigencies.

If that doesn't work for Cities, too bad. They are largely cesspools anyway.

Any Military that is larger than necessary to protect a Nation's soverign borders from attack is too large anyway. Might be good to recoup some assets.

But it must have a legal framework: A fire brigade must be entitled to destroy private property or get access to private propery without a court order. Therefore this brigade must have a official recognition by the authorities and be able to perform on the behave of the sovereign so-called acts of the "iure imperii".

A lot of it is. Much of our military is privatized out. Almost all of our equipment is contracted out.
Many of firefighters in smaller cities are strictly volunteer locals. Our utilities are also privatized and contracted out, as our phones, police equipment, and numerous other public services.

I do not believe I am better than anyone else. But I believe the USA is the best country in the world. I think all people are equal. But not all systems of government. Some systems of government are down right evil, or dysfunctional.

That is my belief, and I will give you reasons. You can disagree, but you failed to convince me otherwise.

Germany started two world wars. It started a European war to get itself started. I would call that a war prone nation. You can argue the organized government structure of the HRE all you want, but they were largely Germanic people. And Germanic people, have a history, as well as modern history, of making warfare.

But like Dussel said what about he municipal power that comes with it? A volunteer fireman should be able to choose which fires and accident they attend, a police service should be able to choose which crimes they attend. Why don't you privatize the judiciary while you are at it. You already have your governors signing death notes, so why not go the whole hog?

Some illness are just so unprofitable, you should not have to tolerate those people just ship them to Africa. Problem solved.

Any way what a hair brained idea volunteer fire service is sounds positively communist to me.

So you don't have a big superiority/inferiority complex yet feel the need to post these threads, when you should be living it up considering how great it is.

You think the US has learnt nothing from other countries, and can learn nothing?

What other countries have you lived in?

Look up the word insular in the dictionary.

Do you just free base facts off the top of your head?

Even your math doesnt add up.

Germany surrendered in 1945. You stated 1870. Do you care to subtract those?

1945-1870 = 75 years.



75 years is not most of 1000. It is 7.5 per cent. Germany was unified in 1871. That is actually four years younger than Canada.

Prior to that the Germanic people were divided up into a multitude of small states, such as Bavaria, Prussia, Wuerttemberg, and others. In fact, at one point, there were over 2000(yes, 2000) sovereign states.

The 925 years prior to 1871 were mostly about absolute poverty.

Are you familiar with the American City known as German town? Let me tell you some facts.

Its in Pennsylvania. Its actually part of Philadelphia.

You might guess from the name, its founded by German immigrants to the US.

Some interesting facts about it.

*The first public protest against slavery occurred there. When? In 1688.
*the first paper mill of America was build there. When? In 1690.
* a German bible was printed there in 1743. The first english bible printed in America was in 1782.
* further west in Manheim, a Baron Stiegel build Pennsylvania's first iron foundry.

So at the height of your supposed 1000 years, some German Baron was piddling around making iron ingots in 1600s Pennsylvania. Why wasnt he off conquering Europe?

Because the German states were dead poor. In fact, at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, there were 225 000 Germans living in the American colonies. What year did that start?

1776.

Instead of being warlike in the glorious Holy Roman/German empire, for some reason they were busy being peaceful, religious and industrious in America?

You dont leave because things are great. You leave when they REALLY REALLY suck.

The Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites. All fled Germanic states prior to 1871. Read on them if you doubt. I believe you have Volga Germans living in Idaho. Also known as Russian Germans. They fled to Russia in 1789, then to America around 1900. Just so you know, there are places local to you, non-net sources, where you can verify these facts. Check out the Palatine exodus as well.


Please, tell me, dont you give a damn about FACTS? Dont you check things before posting?

Prior to 1871 The Germanic people were in no shape to wage continental war.

NO. Germany started WWII but is was SERBIA that started the 1st World War.

Why do I 'hate' the U.S.? If the question were to be to ask why I do not support it in its bids to expand its powers abroad and the answer is a very simple one. I do not like the economic model it promotes abroad. It's not like it's working very well at home at the moment! Once upon a time, after World War II, it promoted sane economic policies abroad, enforcing them with its military, and this helped bring about prosperity in these places. The reason it did it, it would seem, was because Communist-run states were nearby and if they were to have forced the usual poison down those places' throats they would have had Communist rebellions, civil wars and revolutions on their hands... Without such competition from Communism, the U.S. promotes instead destructive policies.

Serbia could not have started World War I. The group that shot the Archduke Ferdinand was Young Bosnia... this was done because Austria-Hungary illegally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1912 and the Archduke chose to visit Sarajevo on St Vitus' Day... Following this assassination, Austria-Hungary produced an ultimatum against Serbia that was an act of aggression against it... Serbia was not obligated to obey all the provisions of the ultimatum.

Actually before the assasination of arch ducke ferdinand British and German troops had already been fighting.

Germany had started to build the Berlin to Bagdad rail way to exploit the oil in the region. Britain had just uprgraded it's naval fleet from coal to oil run and Germany wanted to do the same but possesed no oil rich territory in it's empire, hence the railyway. British troops were sent into Iraq to stop this from happening. The first people to die in world war 1 were in Iraq, though this had largly been air brushed out of the history books.

It even more complex - Napoleon reduced the number of states to 36. Prior some were even not "states" in any modern sense. An example the so-called "Kroever Reich": This were original six villages at the River of Mosel. They belonged to an Imperial Domain, but were given as a sub-feud to the Archbishop of Trier and the Count of Sponheim, but not as a full feud and under the proctection of the self-administration of the villages. So each, even any trivial legal act had to agreed between the Emperor, in his function of being the Over Lord, the Archbishop of Trier, the Count of Sponheim and and self administration of the villages.

Small cities like Speyer were split: One area under the administration of the Bishop an other on under the Administration of the City himself.

My way to college was about 12 km - given the borders of 1789 i would had pass four border controls each way.

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Some of this tiny states had absolute religious freedom (County of Wied), in others Protestants and Catholics were tolerated in other one religion was the official religion. This sometime changed from village to village. The territories of Abbey of Sayn belonged to Archbishop of Trier and were catholic, the neighbouring territory of the Count of Sayn were protestant.




Some were very poor and other very rich: The larger Free Imperial City, like Cologne, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Augsburg compiled considerable wealth: Some by specializing in certain industries (Augsburg's goldsmith were famous for the quality of their work and exported as far as Russia, Paris) others by trade like Frankfurt. Other territories were extremely poor.

Some territories, interestingly mostly the spiritual princes, were often very tolerant, other were extreme restricted in Freedom of Speech. Some were more autocratic, others had forms which could be called "Constitutional Monarchy" with representative bodies, others were more democratic republics.

Some had considerable size, like the territories of the House of Habsburg, other were just one or two villages.

Above this patchwork of territories was the Emperor, without real power, the Imperial Chancellery in Mainz, the regioan "Imperial Circles" (as self-administration layer between Realm and the single entities), the Imperial Dial, were the most had a seat and which made decisions, mostly concordantly and the Imperial Chamber Court. The interaction and the legal framework were fixed in endless volumes of files.

Such a constitution worked more or less, but was certainly not able to act aggressively to the outside world. It was quite strong when attacked, but not able to act actively.



They had a problem: The Religious Settlements of 1555 and 1648/56 named three officially accepted religions within the Holy Roman Empire: Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinist. They enjoyed protection by the law. Jews had, like in all other European countries a difficult special status, but at least formally enjoyed also legal protection. All other religions not.

This situation is under modern ideas of religious freedom not ideal, but still better than in the rest of Europe in which only one religion in one Country was accepted. The local authorities were entitled to define for their territory the official religion ("cujus regio ejus religio"), but had to either tolerate the private service of the other two religions or must give their followers to chance to leave the country and to settle elsewhere without taking any extra taxes.



Certainly not! They were busy to keep themselves busy.