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Comment by netrus | Hacker News Reader

German here. Could you imagine a Florida army going to war in Afghanistan, while California stays neutral, and Texas sends troops to Mexico? - Why not? People in Texas are quite different from people in California, they have different interests and beliefs. The driving force behind the United States of Europe is that (1) every single country is too small to be influential in the world (and we want to have influence in the world) and (2) that the process of joining forces has worked for many member states before (Germany, Italy, Spain, even Belgium ...) Everyone knows its hard, but hey, most new legislation is now the same in all EU member states, and it mostly works. The refugee situation is the strongest challenge of the Unification of Europe yet, but on the other hand, the objective differences between us never been smaller in the past two decades. The United States of Europe are not a must-have, of course, but to many it would be a nice-to-have.

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The obvious rebuttal to your first point is that Texas and California share a language. They also share quite a lot of culture. Whether a Texan is more like a Californian, than a German is like an Greek, I leave to the reader to decide.

There is one other thing. Identity is hard to impose. Most Americans of my acquaintance hold the US constitution to be a centrally important document. Otherwise they wouldn't argue so much about its exact meaning. There has been an attempt at a European constitution. It seems to have been a dismal failure. All the other arguments about border controls, the euro, farm subsidies and so on pale when compared to this. If you can't win hearts and minds, you can't win.

Though sometimes it appears you can achieve the appearance of winning through bureaucratic confusion.

Diversity need not be a reason for non unification. India for example is so diverse that each state has its own language, food, culture etc..

To be fair, Pakistan did happen.

You'd be surprised to know the similarities between India and Pakistan, culturally. The differences are based on ideologies, but the cultures are quite similar.

And yet even there they chose to split off. The subject requires deeper examination.

Muslims vs. hindus. There were lots of political issues when britain ceded the Raj - but basically one of the driving factors for an independent Pakistan was escalation of political friction between factions representing hindus and muslims.

Without all the technocratic apparatus of the European Union involved, the crisis would look a lot worse with countries closing their frontier, blaming their neighbor : it does already happen, but at least, we can talk about it in a kind of civilized manner, which is a much better way to find a solution.

In my mind this is obvious a pan European answer is needed. You can not ask Italy and Greece to solve the crisis by themselves, when most refugee want to actually go other countries.

> You can not ask Italy and Greece to solve the crisis by themselves, when most refugee want to actually go other countries.

If the refugees are persecuted so badly in their own countries (which is a condition for getting asylum), they should be happy for any sufficiently safe country that is willing to give them asylum.

Greece is not able at the moment to provide a decent living for 100k+ refugees. My understanding of asylum goes beyond providing a bread a day and a toilet. What help would I expect from my neighbors if I have to leave my home due to war? <- That's the kind of help we should provide them.

We are talking medical care, language courses, and working permit. I would expect all of that if I were ever to ask my (global) neighbors for asylum - so I am willing to provide it to those that are in need.

> Greece is not able at the moment to provide a decent living for 100k+ refugees.

I agree here. This is why it surely is not a bad idea to distribute the refugees over the EU countries. But I don't agree to the mentality "want to go to other countries". The refugees should be happy to get temporary asylum in a country that is much safer than the country they flee from.

> We are talking medical care, language courses, and working permit.

For language courses: Since lots of refugees have at least a smartphone, they could simply use the resources that the internet provides to learn the language themselves up to some decent level.

Which makes it such a dreadful pity that die Mutti chose to go unilateral (whether she meant the broad invite or not, it was understood that way). The trick to having great power is not using it, until you really need it. She really shat the bed on this, and we will see the repercussions.

In the space of two weeks, many of us have gone from lifelong EU supporters to anti-Schengen. I'm upset.

Texas at one point did have rebel troops in Mexico before seceding and stayed independent for a few years before joining the US. California tried something similar but then got swept up in the Mexican-American War. Even West Florida was "independent" for a few months before being annexed by the US, and of course the rest of Florida was Spanish but neglected by Madrid.

So it is not that hard to imagine a Florida army going to war in Afghanistan, while Texas invaded Mexico and California remained neutral. If they had not been annexed by the US, they would likely either ally the US or have animosity with their southern neighbors due to strained relations from their independence wars.

Also, theoretically a governor can refuse to deploy the state's National Guard. I could find one instance where in California, Governor Schwarzenegger declined the President's request to send National Guard troops to the border with Mexico. So California does have precedent of remaining neutral (said tongue-in-cheek)!

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