Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

HonorHarrington wrote:

Joey wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
Also pan-European identy was around a lot longer than the United States. The EU is essentially a continuation of the Roman Empire, as the Catholic Church was. Europe is a lot more united than all those borders would suggest.

ROFL.
Ima let you finish, Ima let you finish.
I guess all those wars between the various nations and the xenophobic nationalism that has plagued Europe for centuries was just an American invention.

Are you being serious? Do you know anything about nation-building?
The nation of Germany united despite the constituant states being at war more or less constantly since their creation.
The political mood of mainland Europe is very much towards political unification. British politicians because, sadly, Europhiles are the huge minority in the UK so they're often talking of the EU's collapse, even though it's ridiculous.

If it weren't for the Nordic tribes in the Dark Ages splitting up the Romano-Celtic peoples in Europe (much like the Mongols did in the East, dividing the Russians into the Russians, Ukranians and Belyrusians) then there would already be a united Europe, but the language barrier got in the way.

Incidentaly, this is the town hall in Nottingham (a lovely city, always worth a visit if you're in the area):


This is the Reichstag (German government building):


This is The Parthian in France:


A museum in Madrid:

LordofHats wrote:The states haven't been sovereign for a long time Mel. Treating the US like its some kind of confederation isn't really the reality we live in anymore and hasn't been since the end of the Articles.

Not since the case of Lee vs. Grant anyway...

I never said the states were a confederation (not since the federal government was formed, even during the Civil War the actual US wasn't a confederation, just the rebellious faction). But states do have their own sovereign powers even today.

Are we having a building contest?



Not sure what Romano-Celts have to do with anything either. Modern European states are primarily descended from Germanic peoples, with Roman influences. Celts have little to do with anything.

LordofHats wrote:The metric system is evil. Using a base of 10 for everything to make it simpler for everyone? How absurd. If god wanted us to make math easy he'd have told us how to do it

I say we return to ancient Indian numeral systems using 16 as a base

Agree. I like inches, and miles, feet and pounds. Although the liquid measurement system and volume measurements could be metric for all I care. Those are too confusing.

LordofHats wrote:Are we having a building contest?



Not sure what Romano-Celts have to do with anything either. Modern European states are primarily descended from Germanic peoples, with Roman influences. Celts have little to do with anything.

Pfft. The Texas state capital is taller (intentionally).

I'm pretty sure Asians and Arabs pretty much own the rest of the world when it comes to epic architecture.

Amaya wrote:I'm pretty sure Asians and Arabs pretty much own the rest of the world when it comes to epic architecture.

I'm a fan personally:



Though that's mostly kind of Byzantine architecture, but w/e.

Thats not the Haggia Sophia is it? The crappy proped up fence in front is throwing me.

According to the file name it is.

LordofHats wrote:Are we having a building contest?

Not sure what Romano-Celts have to do with anything either. Modern European states are primarily descended from Germanic peoples, with Roman influences. Celts have little to do with anything.

As I said above, they were crushed by the Germanic tribes, who in turn took up the Roman mantle. You really think there'd be anything in Europe if Charlemagne hadn't proclaimed himself the Holy Roman Emperor?
Hell the Catholic Church was supremely dominant until the Reformation, and remained so in parts of Europe until well into the 20th Century.

mattyrm wrote:

Melissia wrote:

mattyrm wrote:Of course you are, its the same country!

The USA stands for the United States of America. A state in this context refers to "Sovereign State".

The UK is a sovereign state, as is, say, France, or Libya (most of the time), or Japan.

Sure the US is treated like one big country, but it is effectively a union of many smaller ones with a large amount of power granted to the single overarching "federal" authority. The US actually tried the method that the EU has given, but the Confederation didn't work very well.

Yeah I know, but its not right to try and say its anything like the same thing, the original 13 colonies were all English speaking people from roughly the same place, and it evolved from there into the current US, but thats nothing like the same thing as trying to make the EU like one big country.

I mean, not that I think we should, I'm a mega Euro sceptic and i would more than happily feth it off. I would prefer an agreement with Canada and the US/Australia/NZ to the EU, as I said, I think that's where our allegiance truly lies, with our English speaking cousins.

I'm just saying, the two aren't actually that similar are they? Trying to stick France with England into a union is nothing like sticking New York in a union with Pennsylvania!

But quite a bit like sticking California and Maine together. Different demographics, dialect, probably politics. The US is by no means a loose confederation of states but it is one super government over the framework of smaller semi independent governments that have steadily lost their power and individuality in the previous century...which sort of describes Europe.

Joey wrote:

HonorHarrington wrote:

Joey wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
Also pan-European identy was around a lot longer than the United States. The EU is essentially a continuation of the Roman Empire, as the Catholic Church was. Europe is a lot more united than all those borders would suggest.

ROFL.
Ima let you finish, Ima let you finish.
I guess all those wars between the various nations and the xenophobic nationalism that has plagued Europe for centuries was just an American invention.

Are you being serious? Do you know anything about nation-building?

More importantly do you? Germany was built on nationalism in the 19th century and had not been politically unified for generations before that. Shortly after unification it promptly went to war with France; so please go on to tell us about how that reenforces your point. You also tried to say the Europe had pan-European unity then tried to talk about nation building. The two are diametrically opposed.

LordofHats wrote:Are we having a building contest?

apparently he is trying to use Greco Roman architecture to demonstrate "pan-European unity", the national, state and I'd wager most of the county capitals also share the same architecture. As do the government buildings and some banks in Canada. So I guess they also have more pan European unity than their borders and geographic location would suggest.

LordofHats wrote:

Amaya wrote:I'm pretty sure Asians and Arabs pretty much own the rest of the world when it comes to epic architecture.

I'm a fan personally:



Though that's mostly kind of Byzantine architecture, but w/e.

If by mostly you mean "the epitome" then yes. Although I'd probably say that Byzantine architecture is the ingenious melding of Oriental and Western architecture creating something that belongs to neither.

The spires of the Hagia I believe were added by the Ottomans, as were some of the outlying additions, but the core center is Byzantine.

LordofHats wrote:The spires of the Hagia I believe were added by the Ottomans, as were some of the outlying additions, but the core center is Byzantine.

The first of the minarets were built nearly a thousand years after the main building. They are pretty easy to pick out as separate styles. If you delete them the building is no less impressive.
Truth be told if I wanted to demonstrate the primacy of Asian architecture I'd go with the Taj Mahal and Ankor Kwat entirely different styles of architecture impressively dominant in their age and style but also uniquely and wholly Asian.

So its agreed then. English should be the universal language of humanity.

Please don't attach non wargaming pictures to Dakka. You need to use off site hosting if you wish to show such images.

Dude, we built that out of ice, in a couple months, before they had science. Like thirty years after we were a state.

If we're having building wars, allow me to throw my hat in the ring.


There's something about it that just screams "OI! DA BOSS LIVZ ERE, SO CLEAR OFF!"

Ya'll inferior.

LordofHats wrote:Are we having a building contest?



Not sure what Romano-Celts have to do with anything either. Modern European states are primarily descended from Germanic peoples, with Roman influences. Celts have little to do with anything.

I much prefer the one they had before that. What happened to that one?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:Pan European Unity? Wait you mean the Europe that was a regular killing zone every 20 years for the last 2,500 hundred years until the US and USSR left millions of troops there?

Are you referring to the post-WW2 stationing? So before that little fracas in the former Yugoslavia (to name just one killing zone.) I'm terribly sorry, but US self-interest and neo-imperialism really didn't stop the internecine warfare. Does it ever?

ArbeitsSchu wrote:

LordofHats wrote:Are we having a building contest?



Not sure what Romano-Celts have to do with anything either. Modern European states are primarily descended from Germanic peoples, with Roman influences. Celts have little to do with anything.

I much prefer the one they had before that. What happened to that one?

there has only ever been one Capitol.

HonorHarrington wrote:

there has only ever been one Capitol.

He was probably making a somewhat childish quip regarding the fact that it was burned down during the war of 1812.

At the same time, I don't understand why there is a cock waggling contest between some posters regarding the US and the rest of the world. Usually younger, but Frazzled isnt averse to it as well.

Its something I have never understood, in the same way that teenagers say things like "Oh Bono is from my town as well!"

If some blokes built the white house, or fought in WW2, or invented the light bulb, what the feth does that have to do with any of you?

Coolness by proxy doesn't make you look any better, so why be so defensive all the time?

I think you're wrong on this one Matty. The only C waving is over buildings, as an example of something else, then just became an example of cool buildings.

Of course, the pink granite of Texas' capital is so awesome it can't be posted here.

LordofHats wrote:The states haven't been sovereign for a long time Mel. Treating the US like its some kind of confederation isn't really the reality we live in anymore and hasn't been since the end of the Articles.

Federalism may not be as strong now in the US as it was a century ago at the very least, but, the States are still quite sovereign and are very well in the business of exercising their own powers granted to them by the constitution. Take California and it's liberal weed laws, which the federal government has denied, by California continues to give the feds the middle finger because the constitutional allows states to deal with their own intrastate commerce, or how about Montana which builds it's own state funded guns and allows its citizenry to have them due to intrastate commerce. I could go on for days with thousands of examples, but yes, states are what makes america, america, not the federal government. Now, federalism is recently getting a surge in popularity in the past decade, and is only getting stronger.

The #1 way I'd like to see us emulate Europe is by having some good airlines that treat a customers like a customer instead of an inconvenience. US airlines are excrement, for the most part.

mattyrm wrote:

HonorHarrington wrote:

there has only ever been one Capitol.

He was probably making a somewhat childish quip regarding the fact that it was burned down during the war of 1812.

At the same time, I don't understand why there is a cock waggling contest between some posters regarding the US and the rest of the world. Usually younger, but Frazzled isnt averse to it as well.

Its something I have never understood, in the same way that teenagers say things like "Oh Bono is from my town as well!"

If some blokes built the white house, or fought in WW2, or invented the light bulb, what the feth does that have to do with any of you?

Coolness by proxy doesn't make you look any better, so why be so defensive all the time?

Or (as it turned out) a rather pointed comment about how little they teach that factoid over there....

ArbeitsSchu wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

HonorHarrington wrote:

there has only ever been one Capitol.

He was probably making a somewhat childish quip regarding the fact that it was burned down during the war of 1812.

At the same time, I don't understand why there is a cock waggling contest between some posters regarding the US and the rest of the world. Usually younger, but Frazzled isnt averse to it as well.

Its something I have never understood, in the same way that teenagers say things like "Oh Bono is from my town as well!"

If some blokes built the white house, or fought in WW2, or invented the light bulb, what the feth does that have to do with any of you?

Coolness by proxy doesn't make you look any better, so why be so defensive all the time?

Or (as it turned out) a rather pointed comment about how little they teach that factoid over there....

It would help if it was actually a factoid. There's a big difference between charring the outside and burning a building down. It's the same building it always has been. There is no "old" one; there is just the one.
They also teach the burning of Washington fairly prominently in the US. The White House was gutted and so badly burned it had to be painted...white. The Capitol's interior was burned and little else. Between you and Joey I'm losing faith in the British educational system.

ArbeitsSchu wrote:

mattyrm wrote:

HonorHarrington wrote:

there has only ever been one Capitol.

He was probably making a somewhat childish quip regarding the fact that it was burned down during the war of 1812.

At the same time, I don't understand why there is a cock waggling contest between some posters regarding the US and the rest of the world. Usually younger, but Frazzled isnt averse to it as well.

Its something I have never understood, in the same way that teenagers say things like "Oh Bono is from my town as well!"

If some blokes built the white house, or fought in WW2, or invented the light bulb, what the feth does that have to do with any of you?

Coolness by proxy doesn't make you look any better, so why be so defensive all the time?

Or (as it turned out) a rather pointed comment about how little they teach that factoid over there....

They do teach it in the US, it's not like it's a secret. Just because swathes of Americans don't respond to your post telling you how witty they thought your War of 1812 joke was, that doesn't somehow translate to the burning of Washington being some rare piece of knowledge that isn't commonly taught in the US. Maybe they just didn't find it all that funny. I got a brief chuckle out of it, and also didn't respond. That doesn't mean I wasn't taught it when I was in school.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I should also add, you do know that building in the photo is the Capitol, and not the White House, right?

IMO the problem is perception. The Americans get fed the media diet that Europe is a socialist utopia and that they're plotting to undermine the US by corrupting Obama and persuading him to make America more socialist.

Europeans get fed the lie that all Americans are ignorant hicks, if you turn up half dead at a hospital with no insurance they'll let you die in the corridor etc etc etc.

I can't speak for other posters, but I've travelled over most of Europe, and I've visited the States (some of them anyway) so I'm more qualified on this subject.
To some up, America has good points/bad points... and so does Europe. Couldn't be bothered typing anymore!

That's really not what the article was about...

It's an anti-austerity/pro-growth article, essentially, pointing out that the US has mostly avoided austerity and this has helped our economy far better than the harsh austerity measures that have been implemented in many EU states. Essentially, the writer's position is that our government's inability to truly cut the budget is actually why our economy is recovering better than the EU economy, and that giving authority on policies such as medicaid to state governments who must have a balanced budget would only hurt our economic recovery because of this, as they cannot properly allow for a growth economic model in a time of recession.