tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786421888318664202.post8656009198973317846..comments2007-12-31T00:16:59.414-08:00JJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08245486008966413644noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786421888318664202.post-23501988167848266692007-12-31T00:16:00.000-08:002007-12-31T00:16:00.000-08:00Prime Minister Harper once spoke favorably of the idea of a "Belgian model" for Canada, as in two linguistic communities that were largely independent from each other, with a federal government acknowledging and accepting the internal sovereignty of each community, rather than trying to impose some made-up "bi-national" consciousness over the entire country. But in the wake of the breakdown of that model in Belgium, he has understandably retreated from the idea. <BR/><BR/>The big problem, as I see it, is that constitutionally enshrining ethnic differences, through language laws, quotas in the parliament, and so on, one ultimately fosters far more disunity than unity. When your state is founded on the principle that different ethnicities have fundamentally different interests and needs that must be protected, then at best all you can have is a “country of convenience” that can be fairly easily dissolved once one of the marriage partners decides he can get a better deal elsewhere. <BR/><BR/>America is unique from Canada or Belgium in that it has always had a “one size fits all” concept of citizenship, and views itself as a country in which all component ethnicities are legally equivalent and deserve no special inherent rights based on ethnicity, religion, or anything else like that. <BR/><BR/>That could change in time, of course, but I think it’s more likely that the Mexicans in the US will form some sort of massive, permanent underclass that colonizes much of southern US culture, rather than a Quebec-like force that threatens the political unity of the nation. Unlike French-Canadians, and the ethnic groups in Belgium, Mexican-Americans don’t have any real constitutional tools at their disposal to exploit.JJhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08245486008966413644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786421888318664202.post-26356196204096575342007-12-30T12:04:00.000-08:002007-12-30T12:04:00.000-08:00Yuliya Tymoshenko sounds like a Ukrainian Ayn Rand.Psudohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01655450638149053756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786421888318664202.post-15367245718457483532007-12-30T11:29:00.000-08:002007-12-30T11:29:00.000-08:00I'd like to see a "Guide to Belgium" comparable to your "<A HREF="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/canguide.php" REL="nofollow">Guide to Canada</A>". It seems like a radically interesting place.<BR/><BR/>In the face of their cultural division on language and ancestry, their tentative alliance seems like an allegory both for the Canada/Quebec division and for the growing US anglophone/spanophone division. If Belgium's French and Dutch cultures can't get along, how can North America's English, French, and Spanish cultures get along?<BR/><BR/>JJ, what are the failings of that comparison?Psudohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01655450638149053756noreply@blogger.com