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U.S. Should Join The European Union
We recently took our cat to have her shots. Patches -- that's our cat's name -- does not travel well. She is very quiet at home, but when you get her in a vehicle she starts yowling and typically won't shut up until she is back safely inside Her House.
However, my wife has discovered that Patches likes listening to classical music on KRCU, the local National Public Radio affiliate. It calms her and she doesn't yowl quite as much. So coming back from the vet we were tuned into the station and I heard the end of a news story on Morning Edition.
It was about how all of the countries using the euro are pulling out of the recession faster than the United States. By coincidence the day before I read in the Wall Street Journal that a number of countries are buying up U.S. dollars to keep it from doing an economic death-spiral and presumably taking their own economies down in the process.
These two pieces of information got me thinking.
I think the U.S. should join the European Union so we can scrap the dollar for the euro.
Granted, the U.S. dollar has been the "gold standard" of currency around the world for decades, but I think our current shaky economy is a sign that the time for a change has come.
Now, I know what you're thinking.
Brad, the U.S. is not in Europe so how could we possibly join? First of all, let me just say that "Europe" is not so much a place as a state of mind. If you think you're European, then you are European.
And it is not out of line for the European Union to expand its membership. According to Wikipedia, the EU has gone through expansions 6 times since being founded as the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. That website indicates that the EU is currently composed of 27 sovereign states including twenty republics, six kingdoms, and one grand duchy.
I firmly believe the U.S. would be a great fit for the EU. Geographically, we are practically the next closest country west of the EU if you forget about a handful of islands and Greenland and that part of Canada that juts out into the Atlantic.
And ethnically the majority of our ancestors came from Europe so I think that should help on our application.
I know a lot of people would be dead-set against ditching the dollar for the euro for sentimental reasons, but I think it's at least worth testing and I volunteer our county to be the guinea pig. We have a French name so that will give our application an air of plausibility. We could be the Kingdom of Cape Girardeau. That has a nice ring to it.
And don't think we're too small to join the European Union. The Kingdom of Cape Girardeau is almost 5 times bigger than Malta, the smallest member of the EU. Matter of fact, if the application asks where exactly our "country" is located, we will just put down "west of Malta."
Now, for appearances sake, we may need to bring in a second "country" that we can say is one of our current trading partners. Two countries joining the EU at the same time is much better than just one.
I considered some of our surrounding counties, but I don't think they would be appropriate. The Sovereign State of Sikeston or the Republic of Marble Hill just sounds lame. But then I thought of a solution. What if we made the southern tip of our county its own "country?"
How could the European Union possibly turn down the Kingdom of Cape Girardeau and the Grand Duchy of Dutchtown?
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