Is this "and I think you should learn more about yours" or would you like to learn more about ours? Because let me tell you ...I'm your man if you want to learn about our laws. I know plenty about my constitution and the laws of the US. I'm a class, a paper, and a bar exam from arguing it in front of judges. Maybe even some day arguing in front of the Supreme Court. To be honest, I know it better than I want to. If anything studying the law has pretty much wrecked any shred of idealism I've had. Seeing how the system works from the inside is really, really depressing.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying in spirit, the parts I don't agree on I at least see and respect where you're coming from because they're both essentially reaching for the same goal--a better citizen.  

I'm not one to hold a grudge over it. Generally speaking from your posts I think you're someone worth respecting.  

I personally would rather there not be any drug laws, either. I don't do them, but if someone wants to ruin their life, I say let them.  They stem from the commerce clause here, making some really shakey logical jumps if that gives you an idea of what our founders thought of the government regulating the citizen's life. Same thing applies to me for gun laws. Again, I'm going under different set of presuppositions. I think people should be allowed to live their lives as they see fit without government regulation.

Bah, this has just spiraled out of control. It came from someone talking about the EU gobbling up the US, which will never happen anyway.  Primarily because of differences like these. To be honest this EU thing worries me  because philosophical differences between countries can cause problems. We had it with our Articles of Confederation over some really weird little things that just built up over time, ended up causing a civil war.

We've always done a great job protecting it from the Judicial side, which is where the end of the line generally is. 

L: Make the law

E: Enforce the law

J: Interpret the law 

It's those damn Executives and the Legislature that screw everything up!

:nerd rage:

:shakes fist in anger: 

 
Yeah I mean about your law (USA).

I really have the feeling that the bill of rights and the rights of the people in many EU countries is not a big difference, so far I don't know really a difference that is why I think I should read it.


And about the drugs law things like that will always have people who hate the law or love it.

For those who were curious about languages spoken around the world...

Most Commonly Spoken Languages
Rank Language Number of Speakers
1 Chinese (Mandarin) 1,000,000,000 +
2 English 508,000,000
3 Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu) 497,000,000
4 Spanish 392,000,000
5 Russian 277,000,000
6 Arabic 246,000,000
7 Bengali 211,000,000
8 Portuguese 191,000,000
9 Malay-Indonesian 159,000,000
10 French 129,000,000

Source: University of Washington

Therein lies the tricky part.  Differences, even here from state to state, can be very subtle but the differences can be significant. Country to country can be even bigger because different words or different grammatical rules can totally change the meaning of two seeminly identical statutes. If you're interested, start with the US  Constitution. It's surprisingly small, but also very dense as legal language (especially something like a Constitution) has to be very precise yet flexible. 

I'll be gone for a couple weeks starting Saturday, but if you have any questions, feel free to message me. 

If you're curious about the reasoning behind it, I'm sure somewhere online is John Stuart Mill's political philosophy writing "On Liberty" you can read for free. It was written after our Constitution, but it's very close to our founders way of thinking, and American political thought in general. 

Actually, here's a quick and dirty notes version of On Liberty:  

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/onliberty/

It's a fascinating insight into the libertarian perspective.  

US Constitution

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

I'd link the legal history, but I don't think there's enough room on the internet. Seriously, it's a billion books that are a billion pages each. 

I'm going to go hunt for European founding documents, it'll give me something to do over this year break coming up.

Also, does anyone have this new EU treaty, is it up on the internet yet? 

Compared to 20th-century total war, everything is low-key. 

 I think it's native only. Just US + UK + Canada makes about 400 million anglos. That's ignoring several other countries where english is a primary or significant language.

These numbers might only be fluent speakers. 500 million fluent english speakers seems plausible, but I think there are many more people who speak english with less skill. 

 Native for sure... I speak three languages  of the top ten woohaa! ( I want four though).

@cAPSLOCK THANKS.  I will read it tomorow thought it is already morning here I need to read it.

I think you can find the EU treaty on the European Union site...Somewhere.