Re: Quebec
I’ve heard (through rumors in Maine) that if Quebec did become its own country, the citizens of the disconnected Maritime Provinces would like to join the United States.
[quote]
I’ve heard (through rumors in Maine) that if Quebec did become its own country, the
citizens of the disconnected Maritime Provinces would like to join the United States.[/quote
Funny, I had heard roughly the same thing years ago, but had chalked it up to wild political speculation. It would be an interesting development, were it so, and lend new light the the status of Puerto Rico (especially if outright statehood is extended to the Maritime Provinces)
Jason R Remy
“No amount of legislation can solve America’s problems.”
– Jimmy Carter (1980)
I have also heard that the Atlantic Provinces would like to join the USA. I don’t think it’d happen. Unless they joined as one single state their populations are too small. The larger states would keep them out.
I see Canada in trouble if Quebec pulled out as Ontario would be too powerful without Quebec to keep it in its place.
At least two, and possible three of the Atlantic provinces have populations greater than that of the least populous state.
I hardly see CA with 32 Million or TX with 19 Million agreeing to give equal status to PEI with what like 134,000.
And I also don’t see PEI agreeing to come into the USA unless it had state status.
Re: “AWB made what I assume was a serious commnet that Texas has a valid succession
movement. I personally think the chances of Texas declaring its independance is unlikely, but what if it did? After all, several states (including Texas) tried to leave once before and the Federal position was this wasn’t allowed. If Texas (or any other state) were to declare itself independant, would we call up the Army of the Potomac?”
Has not happened yet. If you believe a bunch of lunatics, Texas has already declared its independence. See http://www.texramp.net/~rtxgov/
Christ, what an imagination I’ve got…
Re: “AWB made what I assume was a serious commnet that Texas has a valid succession
movement. I personally think the chances of Texas declaring its independance is unlikely, but what if it did? After all, several states (including Texas) tried to leave once before and the Federal position was this wasn’t allowed. If Texas (or any other state) were to declare itself independant, would we call up the Army of the Potomac?”
Has not happened yet. If you believe a bunch of lunatics, Texas has already declared its independence. See http://www.texramp.net/~rtxgov/
Christ, what an imagination I’ve got…
This may belong in a different thread, but the fishing livelihood of the Canadian Maritime provinces was not, to my understanding, “legislated out of existence” so much as the cod fishery was over-exploited and collapsed.
Which version one chooses to accept depends in large part on which “experts” one chooses to believe.
MarkXXX:
I did say depending on how one sees HK’s staus. In certain ways, HK and, soon Macau, might be seen to be “independent” in the way that Guam or the Northern Marianas are. They get status in certain int’l treaties, separately from the US. HK has a similar deal. I wouldn’t call it independence, but [again] gotta define terms.
Heck, when you get down to it - mere words aside - HK might be more independent of China than, say, Guam is to the US, or Lesotho is to S.Africa. And Canada is more closely allied to the US than Idaho.
“Proverbs for Paranoids, 1: You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.”
- T.Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow.
By independent I meant Sovereign.
Given the opportunity, Utah politicians(i.e. Mormons) would be ecstatic at the opportunity to declare themselves an “independent country”. If you truly understand the objectives of the LDS Church, then you must understand that their ultimate goals. The don’t have 50,000 “salesmen” out there for altruistic motives! Beware the wolf in sheeps clothing. Ask questions and don’t swallow that “family values” nonsense! ALL religions, and atheists, and agnostics, and village idiots, to some degree believe in “family values”, so ask questions about the Joseph Smith and the foundation of their “Church” Listen to what the Mormon Church members have to say, and give equal time to the so-called “mormon bashers” even though they are inclined to be vitriolic, you must decide for yourself. Once the mormon missionaries have you hooked, they will want ten percent of your gross income to support a corporation that is already filthy rich and and is only interested in propagating Mormonism.
Leaving aside the hysteria, was there a particular reason you chose to interject your LDS conspiracy theories into this thread?
I have neither the intention nor the desire to become Mormon and there are specific LDS doctrines that I do not believe, but I hardly find it necessary to write a scenario whereby Mormons are trying to convert the whole world to their beliefs, simply to have Utah become independent.
Tom~
Texas has a unique status among the states. When it joined, it had the absolute right to secede, or to split into 2-5 smaller states whenever it chose.
When it subsequently did secede & then rejoined the Union after the Civil War, those rights were never specifically reaffirmed or declared void. Thus Texas has the right (maybe) to secede.
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
Texas was given the go ahead to divide itself up into 5 states should it desire. Not to secede. There is still debate over whether or not it applies today.
Given the fact Texans like things big (they are #2 in population and size) it’s unlikely that would ever come into play.
There was a state-to-state poll taken a couple year ago that asked,“What do you consider yourself first, your state (i.e. Californian,Kansan,etc…) or your country(American)?” Guess which state ranked first. But still, being proud of your state is one thing and becoming a nation is another.
The likeliest next “proclaimed” countries would likely be, as someone pointed out, breakaways within Russia that would become de-facto self-ruled fiefdoms within the “recognized” empire.
As we write, we’re seeing the E. Timor independence process coming unraveled. Gee, who would’ve thought the armed factions wouldn’t just sit back and take it like good losers . . .
Other likely “official” new countries would be Western Sahara (howzabout a “United Kingdom” with Morocco?) and Montenegro. Maybe soon Kosovo will declare itself de-jure, in addition to de-facto, seceded from Serbia.
A few of the remaining Brit colonies may spin off if the Mother Country asks them to clean up their banking laws or otherwise encroach on their autonomy to comply with EU law.
Quebec’s interesting, the project they seem to be proposing now would be what the international community calls a “Free Association” with the rest of Canada (free trade, common citizenship/currency/defence). Come to think of it, south of that border, 9 out of 10 opponents of US-statehood in Puerto Rico propose something similar.
Puerto Rico and the other US island territories have some particular characteristics – compared with the average overseas colony of another power, the US “subjects” are livin’ large: free migration, citizenship (xcept for Samoa), tax breaks, plentiful cash transfers, FAA/FDA/EPA/SEC/FDIC regs, etc. However there are some troubles – the US Congress retains full authority to legislate over them w/o voting representation; the USVI have a free-port status but that hasn’t kept them from going flat broke; the Marianas got to control their own inmigration and labor laws but now have a thriving indentured-migrant sweatshop sector; PR… well we can’t explain it to ourselves in 30 minutes or less, we’re a near-state that consistently refuses to vote for outright statehood and practices cultural nationalism, but less than 4.5% vote for full independence and the last referendum was won by “none of the above”. I get the feeling that in PR we would vote for statehood tomorrow if the US allowed and offered an “Asymmetric Federation” with a special tailored status for PR in language, trade, nullification, etc. . Else it may go the F.A. way.
It does look like in some of the de-facto empires such as Indonesia, Russia, etc. a lot of grief would be saved by becoming true federations of sovereign states, but of course that would mean the Javanese/Great Russians/whatever would no longer “rule”, and of course we can’t have that, can we? 
Four island groups in the Americas (PR, the USVI, Curazao in the Neth. Ant., Bermuda) have recently refused to change status when given the chance to vote. It may be a question of biding their time until EU-like meta-national federations evolve to cover enough of the world so that the question of “going it alone” becomes moot. To small, people-rich but resource-limited territories, a common market, citizenship and defence with a major power is a valuable resource.
The separatist movement in Canada has died down somewhat recently, but expect it to flare up again. Canada has a serious structural problem, and that is our federal government is extremely powerful and attempts to govern over a nation that is very different from coast to coast. This causes continual tension that flares up from time to time and will eventually come to a head unless things change.
Alberta came close to revolt a couple of decades ago when Ottawa introduced the National Energy Program, which was a thinly veiled attempt to rape Alberta of its oil. Our premier actually went on provincial TV and announced that our wells would be shut down and nothing would go east. If you’d have taken a vote on separation then, it would have been mighty close.
Western Canada is not represented well in Canada. During most elections the Prime Minister is announced before the Western Canadian votes are even counted. Yet the West is very wealthy, and politically polarized with Eastern Canada. The west tends to be conservative (Alberta very much so), and the east is Liberal. There is continual tension there that will have to break someday, IMO.
Have we had any new independent countries since two years ago when this thread started?
I think East Timor is having a slow passage through the birth canal, but will arrive.
I don’t really remember - when did the Palestinian Authority come into being?
Interesting - yes, I know why - this thread has more replies than views.