First, go read Tim Bray's post. What follows will make no sense without it. (I originally sent it as an email to Tim.)
Hey, wonderful! I'm all for it.
It got me to thinking about symbolism for the Federation. How 'bout we use the Maple Leaf Flag, but with the red bars changed to blue? This would keep the "red, white, and blue" symbolism important to Unitedstatesians, but the outline would be that of Canada's flag.
Then we could use America the Beautiful as the national anthem (far better than either official anthem both in lyrics and melody, in my opinion). I think verses 1, 2, 7, and 4 of the final 1913 version, in that order, are the keepers, and the blue bars in the new flag would resonate with "from sea to shining sea".
Politically, the Federation keeps a prime-ministerial system with an elected but ceremonial head of state, like all sensible democratic countries. We'd have 16 states, 10 provinces, 2 commonwealths (Massachusetts and Pennsylvania), 3 territories, and one free city (Washington City). We'd also of course have New York City, the financial capital of the planet Earth.
As for the Republic wanting access to the Pacific, let them buy a border province or two from Mexico. "How many Texans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" "Texans don't screw in lightbulbs; they go to Mexico."
On a more serious note, this map is interesting. Back in 1981, a Washington Post writer named Joel Garreau (of Quebecker descent) wrote a fascinating book called The Nine Nations of North America, showing how the continent naturally fell into nine distinct regions (with a few outliers like Manhattan, D.C., and Hawai'i). There's a main web site where the whole book is available online; it's back in print, too.
3 comments:
I'm not sure about the red-state/blue-state thing. The only difference between red states and blue states is the preportion of population living in blue urban areas vs. red rural areas. They're islands of green in the middle of a desert, so to speak. But the blue areas in Oklahoma are not much less blue than the ones in California. Nor are the red areas in california too much less so than those in the bowels of texas.
Plus, even the most very red or blue states are so only by 10-15% from 50%, which is hardly dramatic.
Yes, I know; that's why the idea isn't a serious one. This map shows how purple America actually is.
LOL! I love it! I certainly do not consider myself to be blue, red or purple(ish) or even green for that matter! LOL!
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