Varifrank: Is It Time To Extend The Franchise?

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Is It Time To Extend The Franchise?

I’ve been reading with some amusement the goings on over at Tim Blair’s site in regards to the “Operation Guardian” Project. Just to catch you up on the subject, there’s some well meaning doo-gooders over in “old blighty” who are starting a letter writing campaign to the residents of Ohio, to implore them to not vote for George W. Bush.

Now, we’ve heard this kind of stuff before; “If only the whole world world could vote, they would vote for John Kerry”. The more I thought about it, the more I realized what they were really saying. What the citizens of the UK are saying is that they would love to become part of the United States!

Let’s face it, What’s their option out there at the edge of the Eurozone? Join a pack of decrepit "has been" unelected bureaucrats in the European Union based in Brussels, a Union that none of their constituents voted on, where the populace will have fewer rights than they have today and a constitution that’s 1400 pages long and written by a French politician? They haven’t really been given any other options, you either join the EU or you will quickly become about as relevant as Andorra and Lichtenstein on the world scene.

Or…

Perhaps its time we make them a better offer? Lets look at it this way, in 1890, using the fastest form of transportation known to man, a train, a person could go from London to Edinburgh in 14 hours. Today,by air, you can go anywhere on the planet in 14 hours. So if you calculate relative distance in terms of time, rather than the linear measurement of space, the earth has now shrunk to roughly the size of England in 1890. Yes, England is over on the other side of the Atlantic, but so what, it’s really only 7 hours from New York, it's closer to Washington DC than is Hawaii or Alaska.

Now what would they get out of it? I don’t what to go off on a 100 page statement of what being a US citizen would give to the residents of the UK, so for now, let’s keep the conversation towards voting rights, specifically voting for the executive branch of government.

Under this model, let's treat each of the components of the UK as a separate US state. Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland, are now all new states to the United States. Ireland then decides to "beat the Christmas rush" and do the same with their 3 million inhabitants. Each of the new states either already have or are working on their own independent parliaments, and we would let them keep that as their own state level legislatorial systems. The only change we would mandate is regular elections, rather than the parliamentary approach of elections whenever they are called for. Now, let's add some federal representation; Give each of the new states two Senators and a congressional district for every million in population, with a minimum of one congressional district for each state.

That adds 12 new senators and 33 new congressman and 45 new electoral votes in the expanded US/UK "Union of The States" model.

For the first time ever, the people of England would be able to vote on their executive branch of government. with 45 electoral votes, the Candidates for President would have to visit far off places like Manchester, Luton, Bath, Liverpool, Dublin and London and kiss their babies, shake their hands, eat their 'rubber chicken' specialities and promise them a list of asininely impossible to deliver things that candidates have to do just like we do in the US today. Better still, we might get to vote on a guy like Tony Blair as our President. We could do with a eloquent liberal with a backbone who is willing to defend civilization. Hell, I'd vote for him if I could and I'm hardly a Labour voter, so its not a one way street! The economic conditions in the UK would undoubtedly improve with a "Union of the States", their need for an independent army and navy would no longer exist, they would never again fear of invasion from the continent, their tax burden would be greatly lifted, their opportunities for improving their lives would most certainly improve.

In every way that I can see, it seems to me that we could make them a better offer than the EU could put on the table. In business, we are very familiar with the phenomenon of industry consolidation. Once an industry matures, it’s natural for fewer and fewer companies to exist in that market, as there are fewer dollars to chase in the market as whole. The result is collapse of unfit companies and consolidation of the ones that are still solvent. We might be looking at a similar phenomenon in the nations of the world today. There is an underlying current of “consolidation” out there. The Europeans are looking to consolidate themselves, to become a sort of United States of Europe. This is a fine ambition, one that I whole heartily support. Unfortunately, What has resulted is not a winning combination and in many ways it is forming up to be a first class disaster. So rather than having the UK left with no other real choice but to join the already failed state of the EU, why not consider union with the US?

I know there are lots of details, and things to work out with a "Union of the States", but the same is true of a "Union with Europe". So when I hear you folks in England wanting to vote for the US President, I have a simple answer to the problem:

Now there’s no reason to think we have to extend this just to the UK, we can also extend this offer to Canada and Australia. But a word of warning, while we would welcome you all into the Union, I’m afraid its a permanent arraignment. We had a little problem once with some of our earlier organizations trying to leave the Union, and I’m afraid that didn’t go over so well.

Look at it this way guys, you're going to join someone, you've already made it clear that you're in the market when you signaled your intention to join the EU, so its not like I'm saying anything that surprising. I'm just saying I think we can make you a better deal, thats all. Do you still want to be whining in 10 years about how you still don't get to vote for President?, or wouldnt you rather have an average guy from Lincolnshire running to be President of the United States or the Presidential candidate running his campaign through your town? Think of it, in the Future some average kid in Wessex could be President of the United States!

Has Brussels really got anything that can compete with that?

Posted @ October 19, 2004 10:35 PM | Current Events

Fine, but we'd be annexing about 72 al Qaeda sleeper cells in the process. We would be more competitive in the World Cup though!

Posted by: Don at October 20, 2004 06:01 AM

Brilliant.
I think the Aussie's may be a bit of a stretch though - too far away, ya know.
But the Mexicans....

Posted by: _Jon at October 20, 2004 06:22 AM

What, exactly, is in it for us? Like many Americans, I've long had a soft spot for the Brits; among other things, their vicious anti-semitism is rapidly eroding that. And as one of your readers noted, about those terrorist cells?

Posted by: Cat at October 20, 2004 12:43 PM

I like it. An all-in-one Anglosphere. As long as we don't take Quebec. The rest of Canada (especially Alberta), sure, but not Quebec.

Posted by: Karl Gallagher at October 20, 2004 01:09 PM

cat - I'm not sure what we get out of it. In business you consolidate for a lot of reasons, sometimes the only reason is to keep the assets of the other company from falling into your competitors hands.

One way or the other, The UK is going to give up some of its soveregnty, I just think that we aught to give them an alternate offer. If it doesnt do anything else it drives up the price for the EU.

Posted by: Frank Martin at October 20, 2004 01:24 PM

Dunno.

I don't think they'd go for it.

But a NAFTA: North Atlantic Free Trade Area

THAT might work, and we might pull in Norwegians (Oil) and Dutch and some others too. Nice and slow, show them the light... show up the EU...

The problem with giving them the vote is that they've got so many damn lefties the republicans would freak out.

Even annexing Canada is iffy. Alberta might be a red state, and BC sort of iffy, but by US standards the rest the show is solidly democratic party territory.

Posted by: Fred at October 20, 2004 02:48 PM

What's in it for us? Why the cusine of course.

Posted by: maxboxer at October 20, 2004 04:16 PM

so, this letter writing campaign to encourage Kerry is okay, nut Blair's wanting to move troops closer to Baghdad is NOT okay ...

Gee. Why is that?

Posted by: bkw at October 20, 2004 09:55 PM

"The only change we would mandate is regular elections, rather than the parliamentary approach of elections whenever they are called for."

That would be an improvement. But unfortunately it wouldn't be the only change. Your states must have a republican form of government.

For fervent Australian monarchist like myself, this is a deal-breaker. We won a national referendum in 2000, in every state (woo-hoo!), to keep the queen (god save our gracious etcetera), and we're not about to give her up.

Of course, you could alter the rules at your end. But my American friends have told me the chance of a royalist comeback in the United States of America in the near future is small. Very small.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, much appreciated.

But I am proud to have a country of my own worth voting in and a leader worth voting for. Which is more than (say) the French who want to vote in American elections can say.

Posted by: David Blue at October 20, 2004 11:56 PM

Like I said, theres a whole host of actual "details", but if people outside the US are in such an all fired hurry to vote in the US elections, then maybe they aught to consider becoming part of the US. It's just a thought.

I hadnt given any thought to what the UK joining the EU would do to Australia. Something for me to ponder.

Posted by: Frank Martin at October 21, 2004 12:17 AM

Roaylist comeback in America? Doesn't a 'comeback' denote that there was a royal in the first place.

Sorry, rejected that outright in 1776 when we were mere colonies, we've never had any royals after we formed our own country. Ain't gonna happen. Ever.

Posted by: John at October 21, 2004 12:23 AM