J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,781 
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Post by J.G.Harston on Feb 29, 2016 20:33:06 GMT
The difference is that most federal countries are a single country that is divided up into federal subunits. The USA is rare in that it is multiple soverign units that collectively form the federal unit. The states of the United States are certainly not 'multiple sovereign units' and arguably have never been. If they ever were it would be until the Civil War after which secession has become virtually impossible to achieve even if they wanted to. It is a nation state when most of the states are former territories, have been allowed by the federal government to become states with the same rights as existing states but where they cannot opt out of federal law even if they want to (the rights of the states are also the same for all of them). No, the US constitution specifically says that the USA is an agglommeration of states, the states are specifically not subdivisions of the USA. The federal USA does not allow bits of the itself to be states, it allows states to join it. |
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Khunanup
Lib Dem
Portsmouth Liberal Democrats
Posts: 12,020
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Post by Khunanup on Feb 29, 2016 22:14:50 GMT
The states of the United States are certainly not 'multiple sovereign units' and arguably have never been. If they ever were it would be until the Civil War after which secession has become virtually impossible to achieve even if they wanted to. It is a nation state when most of the states are former territories, have been allowed by the federal government to become states with the same rights as existing states but where they cannot opt out of federal law even if they want to (the rights of the states are also the same for all of them). No, the US constitution specifically says that the USA is an agglommeration of states, the states are specifically not subdivisions of the USA. The federal USA does not allow bits of the itself to be states, it allows states to join it. Whatever the constitution says the reality is that it just isn't true. Former territories become states because the federal government decides to admit them and has even actively enabled/promoted territories to become states in the past (including splitting territories up). As with so much in the USA they are an ostensibly constitutionally conservative nation but on many things they are built on expediency and revision. The fundamental weakness is that within a century the USA will cease to exist because it's contridictions will become to great. The 1980s was peobanly the worst thing that ever happened to it. |
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