North American Union?

[Braxter]

The first I saw about this was on the zeitgeist video. I kinda shrugged it off at the time. But curiosity got the best of me so I looked into it some more. My current analysis is that it's a pretty big thing for me and pretty much everyone else I know to not have heard of it.

From what I can tell, it's an extension of the free trade agreement, with the ultimate goal of creating an EU like environment of political, social and cultural melding. Some go so far as to say that the ultimate goal is to unify the three countries (U.S., Canada, Mexico) into one, with no borders and a unified legal system that trumps the constitutions of all three countries.

What gets me is that the loudest voices of opposition are coming from the right (I think?), even though NAFTA (and this) are both conservative visions.

In my brief searching, I couldn't find very much about what Canadians have to say about this. Every website I've seen on it, seems to be from groups in the US. The Canadian Action Party seems to be about the only Canadian opposition voice on the matter. What do you Canadians think about this?

For you Europeans, what's your take on the EU? Is it helping? Are you happy with it? Do you care?

Americans? Thoughts?

[Xatrei]

I don't know much about it as the only things I've really heard about it are conspiracy ravings. There's a guy in the neighborhood that's a big John Birch Society nut, and he occasionally puts a big sign in his yard warning of the NAU. Fundamentally, I'm not opposed to this sort of thing, though, as my ideal world involves the dissolution of the United States' federal government into several smaller regional social democratic governments, eliminating all of the individual state's autonomy in the process. All of the new regional governments, plus the other countries in North and Central America and the Caribbean would then form an economic union similar to the EU. Not that this would ever happen, but it's the way I'd prefer things to be.

[nneenaK]

I don't know much about it as the only things I've really heard about it are conspiracy ravings. There's a guy in the neighborhood that's a big John Birch Society nut, and he occasionally puts a big sign in his yard warning of the NAU. Fundamentally, I'm not opposed to this sort of thing, though, as my ideal world involves the dissolution of the United States' federal government into several smaller regional social democratic governments, eliminating all of the individual state's autonomy in the process. All of the new regional governments, plus the other countries in North and Central America and the Caribbean would then form an economic union similar to the EU. Not that this would ever happen, but it's the way I'd prefer things to be.

We are so getting a divorce.

[Deward]

This is a stupid idea. The US and Canada could probably work pretty well together. We both have decent economies. Adding Mexico would be like wrapping a 40 pound weight around your neck and jumping off a bridge. The sheer cost to get them up to our levels of expectations would be horrendous.

The other thing that most people don't seem to understand is that the people in favor of this want to do away with the US Constitiution and write something new. The versions I have heard about are pretty bad attacks against our personal liberties that we have come to enjoy.

[Xyun]

I am opposed to anything that would trump the constitution of the united states. We can just annex those countries into states, I'm fine with that. We'll change Mexico's name to New Mississippi. Canada can keep it's name, but it's star on the flag would be pink for their utter gayness.

[Lynks]

Can it be a rainbow instead?

[Xyun]

hmm i'll have to consider that and get back to you.

[Winnow]

If we merged with Canada and Mexico, our flag would have to be changed. We'd have to add a pink frill around the edge of the flag and then hang some fuzzy dice off the bottom of the flag.

[Xatrei]

Incidentally, here's a link to a Council on Foreign Relations task force report that many of the conspiracy nuts point to as the basis for what will become the UNA.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/8102/

[Wulfran]

As a Canadian, all I have heard about this is similar to what was mentioned earlier: some mention on shit like Lou Dobbs if I get stuck watching his stupid show on CNN; the tin foil crowd seem to think its coming and there are a whole shitload of seekrit negotiations taking place already; and not really much else.

As far as the general principle, I'm not automatically adverse to it, particularly Canada and the US. I can see the whining fucking frenchmen in Quebec would oppose it tooth and nail though.

- linguistically we're very similar in Canada and the US, with the exception of Quebec. The French speakers in this country are down to around 25% and those who speak only French are even less. The kicker would be Mexico with is Spanish speaking population.

- culturally again there's not a great deal of difference. A lot of Canadians like to believe we're not as Hawkish as Americans, but those who really believe that are heavily into revisionist history. Our values are fundamentally the same, as is our origin of colonies of Britain. Under the policies of the past 30 years our gov't has encouraged our communities to be more polyglots of nationalistic enclaves than the melting pot of the US, but the core is basically the same. Our natinal spending patterns have differed in that the US has funded a large military and Canada has funded a huge "social safety net"; I think there would be room between the two especially with the combined economies .I'm not as familiar with Mexico but the fact they originated as Spanish colony with its civil laws etc leads me to believe there could be some differences... how extreme I don't know?

- legally Canada and US are similar, based on English common law. Some of the intricacies and applications are different, the largest probably being as far as criminal law, Canada has one uniform code vs the codes of the different states+your federal code (honestly I see the 50-some criminal codes in the US and I think "wtf" because of the redundancies). No idea what Mexico's criminal law system is like.

- governmentally I see some adjustments, if for no other reason than Americans are so in love with the US constitution and Canadians have never been happy with any constitution. We have a shell/framework but a lot of shit to fill out: we basically gave up on it, not because we're satisfied with it, but because dealing with all the issues was stopping the governments from getting on with the rest of the business of governing the country. A lot of the freedoms and rights enshrined in the US constitution are also enshrined in the Canadian charter of rights ( a seperate document) but things like the right to bear arms and even the mechanics of choosing a head of state, removing that head of state should it be warranted, the make up of houses of representatives, et al could have a lot of issues to resolve. A question I hear from a lot of Americans is "when are you guys gonna get rid of the Queen?" and my outlook is "when we see a better replacement" and I think that sums up a lot of Canadians' perspective: we don't beleive in the divine rights of royalty, etc. but we see flaws with a lot of the systems that have replaced the monarchy and haven't been moved by the pros outweighing the cons enough to warrant the headache of replacing the royals.

On the whole, I think a NAU could fly or at least the Canada-US part. The major kicker from the Canadian side would be the willingness to tell Quebec to STFU, which hasn't been evident in the past 30+ years in Canadian politics. Mexico would involve a lot of other issues but I also don't think it would be as bad as Deward thinks: I look back to the reunification of Germany and the rich West having to absorb a poor East that had been pillaged by the Russians for 50 years. There'd definately be an adjustment but I don't think it would be anything long lasting or extreme... but I'm not an economist either

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

On the plus side, we would be be able to drywall around the entire border of North America and then roof it for like $15 in labor costs. We would also be able to freely trade Iron City beer to Newfoundland for Moulson.

[Xatrei]

Somewhat timely - UNA and 9/11 conspiracy wingnut questions Fred Thompson about his involvement with the CFR, and is then removed by security.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvMWGNX7HlI&NR=1

[Winnow]

- linguistically we're very similar in Canada and the US, with the exception of Quebec. The French speakers in this country are down to around 25% and those who speak only French are even less. The kicker would be Mexico with is Spanish speaking population.

Canada's little frenchie problem would be taken care of with a few well placed bitchslaps the day we merged.

The Combined forces of Americanada would be massive! (US Military + 2 diesel submarines) We'd also have a surplus of Blue Helmets to give to the poor.

I don't get the Mexico part. Where would our cheap labor come from?

[Nick]

About the only thing I notice being a part of the EU is that I can easily travel anywhere, or move anywhere in the EU with next to zero beurocratic interruption if I so please.

I'm not much of an expert on the EU, so it probably affects me a whole lot more than I'm even aware of. I'm all for European unity, or anywhere unity, or everywhere unity too for that matter.

[Xatrei]

Over the weekend, my curiosity got the better of me, and I took a look at some conspiracy guy's video presentation about the perils of the NAU. It's pure conspiratorial kookiness, but it gives and interesting bit of insight into where the anti-NAU clowns are coming from, and how they draw their conclusions.

It's available in multi-part google video clips here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 0482102257

Or you can find it on usenet, depending on your server's retention. It was posted about 36 days ago in alt.binaries.documentaries (supersearch "pretext for the nau")

This guy points to http://www.stopthenau.org for more info.

NOTE this is all conspiratorial claptrap, but the fact is that's about all you're going to find out there about the non-existent NAU.