Never heard the Kissinger connection.  And I do love the Avalon hill games as well (except keeping up with all those pieces).  I actually found someone who loved them as well when I was in high school.  We played one game for weeks (a couple hours a day, a couple days a week).

Way to paraphrase!  It almost makes me sound intelligent!

On the bloodiest war, I was hoping someone would jump in and correct me, but with actual examples.  And I should have qualified "in the modern era" as I am sure the Carthaginians suffered more at the hands of the romans than we did from our own devices.  back then, genocide was not a curse word, but a way of life.

Genocide still is a way of life.

When the Romans murdered the Carthaginians they got away with it (and the international community at the time accepted it) and when the Sudanese government murders the Darfurians they get away with it too.

The world hasn't changed.

Not. Those are factors that play into the "why would it happen" rather than the "how". There are just too many cultural difference between the various countries of Europe to ever allow a single supranational entity that will rule. The best they will come up with is a loose federation.

The cultural difference of the people coming to the U.S. is diluted. Very diluted, into the very large cultural pool that forms the USA. You are some sort of huge entity of micro-cultures spreaded across your land, with some general themes in some general location. Still, everybody still watch the Superbowl or the World Series. You all get hyped up by your next presidential election. You all felt saddened by the 9/11 deaths.

The United States formed a single, unified nation because the starting colonies were so alike from the beginning. Europe will never be a single nation for the exact same reasons, but opposite.

Really? Last time I checked, a black people still got a shitload of trouble 50 years ago

Chinese citizen got their citizenship refused to them. Japanese citizen got locked up internment camps.

Right now, Arizona just created laws to discriminate against hispanic people on their territory.

You might claim these actions are justified or not. They might be, or might not. But discrimination still exist in your nation.

(But I will give it to you that you are doing a better job, overall, to help the newcomers to your country than Europe. But then again, Europe's lack of supranational sentiment isn't rooted in their incapacity to integrate immigrants, but just by basic nationalism rooted into centuries of history)

Interesting, basically the only difference between the USA and Europe is time. The people of the USA were able to accomplish in less than 200 years what Europe has not been able to in, what. 1000 years?  You claim it to be apples and oranges, to me these are apples that could and apples that couldn't. The USA had (and still does) different cultures, languages and traditions. We warred against each other and developed independent states, we simply chose to unite these states under a single flag while still keeping their independent status.

Let's be specific here, this was not a law to discriminate against Hispanics but to enforce illegal immigrant laws. If the police abuse this policy then they should be punished accordingly. This comment comes from a Hispanic man who believes illegals should be treated as criminals since it's a law they are breaking. I went to jail because I drove a can with a suspended license. Was I a danger to the public? I could have hurt someone with a valid license yet I was punished for simply having a suspended license. Actually it was because I didn't go to court for the ticket that got my license suspended. So as an American citizen why should I go to jail for breaking the law yet an illegal should be left alone?

To be fair, Americans were mostly Europeans 100 to 500 years ago. So we can really only start counting from the founding of the first colony that became part of the US, not any time that happened when Americans were still part of European nations.

Maybe we should even start in 1776 when Americans wanted to become a nation and count until the end of the Civil War for an end to legal unification and until the 1960s Civil Rights law for actual unification. So, indeed, it took Americans less than 200 years what Europe has not yet accomplished, counting from 1776.

ChuckCS, I was wondering what Arizona law he was referring to and how it discriminates against Hispanics.

To show that a law discriminates against X, one would have to show how the law targets X who are citizens and X who aren't citizens differently from non-X who are citizens and non-X who aren't citizens.

No one ever said discrimination does not exist, but it is not part of our culture and these laws are not meant to discriminate but protect the people of this nation. Just like it so happens that terrorist attacks of recent years were done by Muslims, illegal immigrants in Arizona tend to be Hispanics and so it is Hispanics who will have to bare the initial problems of this new law. I tire of people getting away with crimes just because they cry "discrimination".

This is what he was talking about:

Arizona Immigration Enforcement Bill Stirs National Debate

When is the last time you went to any european city?

Seriously, answer that question. I am going to prove how ignorant your arguments are.

Doc, don't be such a wimp! All women lie! It is a fact of life! This is why they are better at it than men.

In which of the many non-united European states?

Go ahead.

Prove how Europe is just as united as the US.

But I am warning you, I am still angry because o2 Ireland regards o2 anywhere in Europe as completely different corporations and networks and hence I am "roaming" when I cross a state border a few miles from my home.

I am not getting pre-paid USB 3G sticks for the countries I might visit so that I will have affordable Internet access while I am there.

And my private health insurance would pay for my return to Ireland rather than for a hospital in another country within Europe. Isn't that cute?

So please, prove to us how being in a European city (I am in Dublin right now) proves that America didn't accomplish a unity in less than 200 years that Europe has not been able to produce yet.

Any, to be honest. Any city that has more than 1000 year of history

Lucky you! Ireland! The homeland of my fore-fore-father!

Anyway. You probably noticed a major difference between Dublin and, let's say, Los Angeles. Or New York. Or Houston. Or pretty much any city of the United States (save the very original colonies).

Dublin has to build it's modernity by adapting what it had and what has already been built in the past 1000 years. Their road system isn't as efficient as the U.S.'s. Their infrastructure are also less effeciently designed. The whole paradigm behind the road's layout of Ireland hasn't been created while thinking of cars, but of horses and carts.

You end up with a city that has a lot of charm (old montreal is a lot like that, and I am sure quite a few ancient parts of some eastern U.S. cities are too), but that will never reach it's full potential except if you destroy part of what was and you redesign everything in a more efficient way.

I cannot imagine if the whole of Montreal had been designed with the same mentality than the Old Montreal.   But Paris has. London has. Luckily for everybody, they accepted to destroy many elements to allow for some modernity, but many of the layouts of the city are puzzling as hell.

Well, the USA/Europe comparison is kinda the same. You cannot compare Europe to the USA for the same reason you cannot compare European to American cities, as one was built and designed from scratch, with the Grand Scheme in mind, while the other has been the result of a patch-up work that lasted from millenia.

The country of the USA has been designed to be an efficient way of running a Federation of independant states while being independant of the Europeans. You did not had 2000 years of violent backstory, you were all in this together. It worked well, because you "built anew". To compare European/American efficiency, you'd have pretty much to destroy all the societies of Europe and make them build anew, and see how they fare.

The European Union, on the other way, was created to prevent a further bloody conflict (I am taking a big leap here, as I consider the EU to have started up at the first pan-european economic treaty.. which has been created in... err.. the 50s?). It hasn't been created to provide strenght of organisation structure, but simply to strenghten the ties between the various nations composing the Union.

A country built from scratch, that has created it's own culture, that has always existed in post-renaissance modernity.. well.. it's kinda special, don't you think?

The same way, technically, Dubai was supposed to be more "grandiose" than any US city. Since everything has been built with cars in mind (it worked too well). But then, the leaders of that city who took many decisions were kind of idiots. (there is something to be said about our western organisational culture!! )

With the caveat that I have never been in Los Angeles, or New York, or Houston or any city of the United States, I would say that the most noticeable difference is that American cities have more Chinese restaurants.

Oh, and our Mexicans are real Spaniards.

But we are forgetting about your point that looking at any European city would demonstrate that Americans have not accomplished more than Europeans when it comes to unity.

There are still examples of it, but I would hope that most of the world has changed.  From general acceptance 2000 years ago, to general condemnation of it today.  It is not a light switch with an off and on.  Just a dimmer one that hopefully is being turned up.

I am not going near that with my wife reading over my shoulder!

Shouldn't that be the other way around?

As for the differences between the cities that Cikomyr listed, I would ask him how many immigrants (legal and illegal) does Dublin have.  How many do the American cities have?

No one stated that the assimilation process was painless.  There are many barriers to overcome, but they are overcome daily in the US.  Out of necessity, and out of sheer force.  While a new immigrant is more likely to seek the solace of similar people, his children gradually lose sight of their old ways.  For a very good reason.  They never knew them!

I have to agree with Leauki that Europe can do it.  And it is painful. They do not have to do it (they have the protection of their history to comfort them from the pain).  But if they want to be considered relevant in the 21st century and beyond, they have to do it.

I don't know how normal people reacted to genocide back then.

But the "international community", i.e. the governments whose opinions are recorded, react the same now as they did back then. Ironically, they still obsess over the same small country instead of doing something about all those genocides (or in the case of the perpetrators of same, stop genociding).

Once notable change is that back then you only exterminated a people because they were your enemies and you won that war. Today people become your enemies because you want to exterminate them.

Oddly enough, while the first has become something of a social Pariah among civilised nations (and have become a standard accusation), the latter is fully accepted and rarely criticised by the "international community".

Dublin had lots of Poles. But they are EU citizens and most seem to have returned to Poland and had no intention of staying.

I am a real immigrant, I guess, although also from another EU country.

In the US, what I did would be considered "moving". Here it was considered getting a second social security number and starting a second life.

Well, I pretty much covered that in the 2nd part of my post, if you had bothered to read

I did read it but couldn't find the argument you thought you made.

Did anybody else see it?

You just went on about how the US and Europe cannot be compared. (Which is something we disagree on.)

_I_ am waiting for you to explain WHY the US and Europe cannot be compared.

Of course the cities are different. But in order to say that, they must be compared.

Because one was built from scratch in 400 years. So you did not had any of the sociological problem inherited from a society that went through Dark Age. You developped your own problems, but you did not had the huge one Europe had.

Also, American Union was created with a mindset of self-defense and organisational purpose. The European Union was created to avert any further bloodshed. You just cannot compare the two organisation. One had a huge history, the other is pretty new. One's member dates almost as old as the organisation itself, the other's members originates in the dawn of civilisation.

One is apples, another is oranges.  But actually all are fruit.  You point out some differences, now I will point out some things overlooked.

Europe was united at least 2 times in history.  During the Roman empire 2k years ago, and during Charlemagne half that ago.  So it CAN be done.  No one said it would be easy.

One thing that allowed it to happen was a common language (each had their own native tongue, but the business of empire was done with Latin).

Before you had people who really did not care.  Now they do.  I think 300 million (or half that if you want) that want to do something 1 or a few did millennium ago can do it.