POLL: The Olympics - how many players should the EU get?

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Hello everyone,

This poll was prompted by a discussion I was having with a politico about the problems with the EU Constitution. Well, it segwayed from there.

Anyway, the United States is a union of 50 different states, but we only get represented in the Olympics as ONE state.

Should members of the EU also be hit with this limitation? Should each EU member state be allowed to send representatives? If so, should each member of the United States be able to send representatives?

Poll Information
This poll contains 1 question(s). 25 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: The Olympics - how many players should the EU get? (25 votes.)

How many Olympic representatives should the EU and US be allowed to send? (Choose 1)
* Each member of the US and EU should be able to - it only seems fair. - 8% (2)
* The US, as a whole, can only send one set. Each EU state can send one. - 88% (22)
* Both unions must send representatives a whole - 4% (1)

 

This is silly.

 

USA is a one country. EU is not a country, it is an organization, which is consisted of many countries.

 

This is silly indeed, the cultural differences between European states are far greater than the differences between states in the USA. USA is one country one nationality, Europe is several countries and several nationalities.

As an example: I could never consider myself cheereing a Swede in the olympics, I do not hate them but there is rivalry between the too of us which have led to the fact that I always seem to enjoy when Swedes fail in something (even if Finns aren't even participating in that particular event) and I tend to get very very upset if Swedes beat us in something.

 

With your logic Blackhawk every Swiss canton or German state get to send their own contestants. The EU is more like an organisation like the WTO or the UN than a federation like the US or Germany. There are other Federative states around the world, I am fairly sure Canada, Brazil and India for example are organised like that as well. There is a vast difference between a federative country/state/nation and an international organisation with member states.

 

• "Proviences" such as what Switzerland or Canada has are far from states. Members of the United States are basically indpendent nations with the exception of independent militaries (grey area) and currency. Look at U.S. history.

• Second, the culture from state the state is quite different. The culture between Northern California and Texas are severe.

• Third, just because the EU does not have a president does not make it any less than a union. When I look at the World News Network stories about the fight over the Constitution, it does remind me of what the U.S. did over 200 years ago.

• Fourth, language is not culture. The United States is overwhelming English - that's true. However, the fact that English is spoken from Alaska to Florida does not make each state automatically equivalent in culture.

 

Blackhawk, if the US are 50 different nations, then they should have 50 different leaders, 50 different capitals with 50 different senates. I agree with Laches and Tal, this is VERY silly.

 

And one other thing too is that Europeans hardly have any common national pride. I am not proud of what Germans, French, Italians, Norweigans, Danes etc. achieve, I am only proud of what Finland as a nation achieves in the olympics, sure I might have a favorite sportsman from another country but that might as well be an American. Europe is in many ways much more divided than the USA for reasons Tal already pretty much explained. To say that EU and the USA are the same thing is completely absurd.

 

To me this is interesting.

We do have 50 different governors, 50 different capitals, 50 different senates, 50 different house of representatives, and 50 different sets of laws.

We do share one currency (same as the euro) and we do have laws about inter-state commerce (I think that is what the EU did).

We may not have different languages, but we do have different accents and in some cases vastly different cultures.

Rather than trying to get 50 olympic teams, I think a better question to ask is "Should the EU be limited to one seat in the UN, the WTC, etc. etc."

 

They do.

I live in Sacramento, the capitol of the California Republic. We have a Senate and an Assembly. Our "president" is Schwarzenegger. We use the term "governor" because California does not have an independent military.

 

In this I might agree eventually, but EU is far from ready for it, the oppinions in different EU countries are very different and I would not like to see Finnish matters represented by a German (or any other non-Finn for that matter) atleast not yet.

 

Blackhawk, if I ask you what is your nationality, you will not reply that you are a californian, you will reply that you are an american. If you ask me the same question, I will not answer that I am a european, I will answer that I am greek. You pledge allegiance to the US flag, not to the californian flag, I pledge allegiance to the greek flag not to the EU flag.

 

Thanks BOC, that is what I meant, but you said it better. Only one thing, I don't pledge myself to any flag, not Swedish, not EU, and not UN, that just makes me feel guilty if(ready when) I do something illegal.

 

Frankly, I'd get kinda' pissed if someone tried to make the US break up its Olympic teams. For some reason, and its just a guess, I think Team USA in hockey might be a bit more successful than Team Alabama would be. I think Team USA in baseball would be a tad more succesful than Team Alaska.

The strength of the USA athletically comes in part due to its large population. From a purely competitive standpoint - why would you want to give up the huge advanatage that comes from a pooling of resources? I think you've got it entirely bass ackward.

And - you stated that what is going on in the EU resembles in your mind what happened in the US 200 years ago. The key phrase there is '200 years ago'. The US has been one nation for 200 years round about. The EU is a relatively new economic alliance with overtures of extending that relationship. Should the US, Canada, and Mexico only be allowed one Olympic team because of NAFTA?

 

Switserland isnt divided into provinces, nor is Germany, India or many other countries around the world. Sweden is divided into provinces, so is France and most countries around the world. Switserland is a federation, with different laws and different government. Same is the case with Germany. It is not as evident as in the US cause as is the case with Switserland the different "states" are small and there is a bunch of them and in the case of Germany there are only a few but the basic organisational principle in them is the same as it is in the US.

You are comparing apples and oranges when you are comparing a federative country with an economical and to some extent political union. As I said before, the EU is much more similar to the WTO or NAFTA. As for the Euro not every EU country has it, not yet atleast.

Even if for example the EU developes in such a way that it is pretty much one federative country I still dont think it would compete in sport events as one. Sports is a very conservative and traditional thing. The UK for example still has four different teams competeting in football, and I think rugby and cricket due to old traditional reasons.

[ February 13, 2004, 00:12: Message edited by: joacqin ]

 

Another vote for silly.

 

Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Estados Unidos do Brasil... and so on. Sure, the parts have hardly ever been independent countries, but the organisation is much the same.

In case of Germany, this is contrary. Historically, independent countries starting from the decline of Imperial power and the Golden Bull, through 16th century when Imperial power was not much more than just an illusion... up to the Hohenzollern Reich with autonomic states and Weimar Republic with largely autonomic ones (Bavaria had her own diplomatic representatives throughout the world, for example) and even now the Federal Republic isn't all that unitarian. Oh well, ask the German folks around here. /me shuts up

Actually you could even argue that Polish so called voivodships are direct descendants of independent feudal duchies. Let alone France with her lots of feudal states such as Orleans, Brittany, Burgundy, Provance, Auvergne - just to give some examples), or Spain with her separate kingdoms such as Asturia - the continuation of Visigoth Spain defeated 911 AD by Maurs, Leon, Castille, Aragon, Navarre, Portugal (separated from Leon in 12th century, not like this matters a lot in this thread ).

Then, we also have a tradition of all the iconic tiny feudal stuff in Italy: from hardcore dominions to merchant republics. The whole lot of Ruthenian dutchies in what's now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Well, what about Irish kingdoms or Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy?

Hehe, lots of representatives for the Olympics

As for US states', my opinion is that they can't have their own Olympics representatives as they can't have their own ambassadors.

After all, the European Parliament in Strassbourg doesn't really have anything to say (they can only comment on the laws passed by the executive and control the way money is spent, plus perhaps some irrelevant stuff). Federal Congress doesn't seem this weak to me

Same for the President vs the Commission Chairman. US is overseas, Union is 400 kilometres from here. It takes a moron not to know who's the current US President, but only several weirdos would know who's the current Commission chairman (Romano Prodi? Just guessing).

US states are to US a bit like Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are to UK. In fact even less. The parts of UK had been independent kingdoms for ages (before 1715 the reigning monarch was King of England, Scotland and Ireland). And there's only one UK representative. There's none for Scotland or England alone (unlike in football championships).

 

Swiss constitutional law isn't your strength, is it ? There's a reason it's called helvetic confederation. Note: confederation. A canton is not at all like a Canadian province. And a dare say, a canton is more a state than a US-state.

 

And here in Sweden we have "landskap"(states), and they all have one "landshövding"(governor) each, that means that Sweden is allowed to send 25 teams, not just one. We are right now up in 400+ nations in the Olympics.

Blackhawk, give up!!