>Except that every 'resident of every state' (you are not a citizen of a state but a resident - you are only a citizen of the U.S.) is a citizen of the U.S. American's are more 'American' than they are North Carolinians or Wisconsinites or anything else. Very few would see their loyalty being stronger to their state than their country.

I've always wondered why there is "extradition" between states (and province here, I believe). Given the above, I wonder even more.



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>>>>>>The U.S. model of federal states and one president who can overrule all governors is a nightmare for Europe, simply because the borders between European countries also reflect significant cultural borders.
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>>>>>That's already the case Peter please wake up....
>>>>>As far as "cultural borders" are concerned do you really think they're no 'cultural differences ' between the 50 states of the US ?
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>>>>There are the same one and a half languages in use all over the place; the same money is likewise in use for a couple of centuries; and even the same (con)federal culture of "this is how we do it here and no feds can tell us what to do" matches the same isolationism of "this is how we do things here and no ISO standards, IS units or whatever need show their ugly faces here - nobody tells US what to do". So while the legal and cultural differences among the states may in some cases be larger than between, say, Greece and Ireland, the habit of having those differences and being OK with them is, I think, the same all over the US.
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>>>I've probably missed your point entirely again.
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>>>Are you saying that the legal and cultural values of Greece and Ireland are more alike than those of two random american states or even two specifically chosen states? I would find that very hard to believe. In which ways do you find that to be true?
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>>On the contrary - but I confess the sentence was convoluted :). I meant if you were looking for similarities and differences, you could find some details where Greece and Ireland may be less different than, say, New Hampshire and Arizona. But despite such anecdotal evidence, which could be cherrypicked to prove anything, the sum total of similarities and differences would eventually weigh in on the US states being more alike each other than EU countries. Including the culture of differences among the states (the first "nobody tells us") and the culture of difference between the US and the rest (the second), which is IMO the same across all 50.