I rest my case with respect to your knowledge, or lack thereof, about the issues you choose to discuss. Accordingly your opinions are essentially useless since you know next to nothing on these topics, and it would e so easy for you to at least minimally educate yourself on these topics. While laziness may be an excuse in your country, ignorance isn't.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

No I'm a dual citizen if you must know.

Beat up a mugger on the other hand and get tried with assault.

Yes it does, if you don't think it doesn't why hasn't europe adopted a universal code of laws yet?

Only if its excessive force, like if you beat the mugger to a pope or something. Smack him a couple of times and you wont get tried with anything, sounds fair enough to me.
Because the EU is NOT suppose to be one federal state like "United States of Europe". You cannot compare the EU to anything else, its a new model never seen before. Kinda like that North American Union project with Canada, USA and Mexico.

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It all comes down to this on election day: Are you a racist, or do you look down on spastics?

Actually North America is three completely seperate entities and is nothing like the EU. The only think tying them together is the fact that they are in the same geographic area and tend to trade alot with each ofther as a result.

Actually the EU is trying to integrate more closely politically, that was one of the reasons for the whole consitution fiasco, and a reason for the opposition to Turkey since it is believed they do not share the same values of the current EU members. Everything the EU does is pointing at one political entity with sub entities being the former nation states. Suprisingly enough that sounds very close to what currently exists in both the US with its federal government and states as well as Canada with their federal government and provinces. So the question is in fact a valid one.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Yeah I was right, just look below!

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It all comes down to this on election day: Are you a racist, or do you look down on spastics?

Sounds like you haven't read the latest constitution for the EU, the one that the people in France and Holland unfortunately rejected. It clearly states that the EU consists of independent sovereign nations/countries who can step out of the union any time they want. Hard to believe that Texas could be released from the U.S if they wanted to.

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It all comes down to this on election day: Are you a racist, or do you look down on spastics?

Wallaroo I actually am aware of the secession arrangments in teh EU constituion. Amazingly even the USSR gave its various republics the right to seceed, but do you think any of them ever really could?

The US also gives the states the right to seceed from the Federal government as long as it is done by "mutual agreement" Suprisingly that is the very same right each of the state of Europe would have had in withdrawing from the EU under the defeated consitution. Just for your edification here is the applicable EU part of the constitution you refered to:

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

In the US procedure doesn't vary much anyways.

Beating him into a pope would be quite the sight. =D

The US isn't supposed to be a monolithic country with an all powerful federal branch either. The diversity and variety is too great for that. And the EU isn't anything special, as Gort said it is in process of becoming another USA or Canada.

There have been threats of seccession before (first ones during the War of 1812) but we'd never know the validity of such a legal claim to the right of secession because even if the southern states did have the right to secede, through firing on Ft. Sumter they effectively declared war on the north which makes the whole matter moot since that gave the North a legal justification to invade regardless. (much to the pleasure of Lincoln)

US Territories have seceded before, as both Cuba and the Phillipenes did after being taken from spain.

Actually while there have been court cases that seem to say otherwise the constitution it seems to me allows for secession as long as both sides agree.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

I don't know the word seceded, but I assume it means a region that obtains independence. Well the Philippine's and Cuba was not a part of mainland U.S and was never considered as actual states in the union, just like Taiwan is not a part of mainland China. So its not exactly the same as if Alabama seceded is it?

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It all comes down to this on election day: Are you a racist, or do you look down on spastics?

But the point of the matter is US states do have a right to leave the union assuming the state and federal government can negotiate the termination of their participation in the union. THis is the same right states of the EU have. SO in the end the US rules on seperation and that of the EU are not that different.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

So what's your excuse for ignorance Gort? Insult others and expect it back.

Baseless insults my dear Bailey have never bothered me, nor are they usually effective. That is what seperates us, I usually hit the target I aim at. In fact the EU and US would have had simular secession arrangements had the EU actually approved the constitution.

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The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

Nice homework, perhaps you could also quote the part of the U.S. constitution that gives the different states their right to secede from the Federal Government.

And no, I don't think the republics of former USSR could have seceded in practical under the Soviet empire, it sounds like the typical kind of USSR hypocrisy.

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It all comes down to this on election day: Are you a racist, or do you look down on spastics?

In the USSR constitutions (1924, 1977) as well as the amendment from 1944 the republics had the right to seceed. Just as Bavaria has the same right in the Bundesrepublik. That being said it was of course unrealistic that it could happen. As for the EU, any country that wants to drop out of the "polity" has the right to do so, but members must unanimously support it. However, such a move is highly unlikely, because the EU in constrast to any other "empire" is "empire by invitation," not "by force. This is one of the reasons why the EU is so unique, so different from any other social construction that has ever existed. That it is unique is confirmed by the lack of a common label for the EU among social scientists. Is it a state? In some respects - symbols, CFSP etc. - it arguebly is. On the other hand... well you know (Dutch, French referendas, lack of coherens on Iraq etc.).