Re: I don't think you quite understand the issues here.
I think a better parallel might be Puerto Rico. Come to think of it, some of them have been bucking to become the 51st state for some time. And they will eventually have a referendum on it.
I very much doubt it, and certainly can't see that we should have any such obligation.
Egads...that's is SO European of you.
Just because they've been a militarily useful lackey to the USA -- because that's what their having been "a staunch NATO member" really means, isn't it? -- doesn't in any way make them Europeans. With that argument, you could just as well argue that pre-Gulf-War Iraq, or Iran under the Shah, should be "Europeans". Or Chile under Pinochet.
Useful lackey, such as say, Germany, Britain, etc. Who cares if they are Europeans? We don't.
They wanted to be in on the old Common Market. I don't see where Turkey being part of Asia (or Asia Minor) if you prefer makes any difference since the EU is mainly a trading group.Your information seems to be terribly outdated: That's what "the old Common Market", as you so aptly describe it, was. The new European Union, though, is not just a new name for the same-old same-old -- it truly is a Union; something that is on its way to becoming a USE (United States of Europe).
Ah, so you finally want to be big boys now? Didn't help you Bosnia or Kosovo. You still came crying to us to do the heavy lifting. We don't care about your European sensibilities about who is a proper European. What are you going to do, test everyone for ethnicity before admitting someone. "Hmmm...you seem mighty white to us and we have the same churches. Yup, yer European son. Hmmmm...you seem pretty dark, and have those funny onions on yer steeples. Nope, yer not European son, you gotta go."
And anyway (again), just because someone's wanted something for a long while is not a logical reason, per se, that they should have it. Heck, I've wanted a Mercedes for as long as I can remember, and nobody seems to feel obligated to give me one just because of that. (You volunteering? :-)
You won't feel that way if Turkey slides into a fundamentalist state because you were too white to accept them.
Whoo, and the parallels are soo convincing... Not! The one populated by Neolithic islanders, thoroughly colonialised by pineapple barons for a century or more, the other an Arctic wasteland barely populated at all, it's no wonder a humongous country like the USA could swallow them without more than a few burps.
See, note on Puerto Rico.
Now move Indonesia next door and tell me you can do the same again.
Turkey abuts Europe. They share a secular government, are reforming their economic system, and part of NATO...not white enough for you?
Tell me that you wouldn't even *hesitate*.
Go on, tell me; I'm all ears.
Dunno...I might consider Indonesia, but they'd have to reform their economic system first. Actually, I'd rather take Taiwan or Japan.
Currently, the EU has restrictions on the internal finances of countries that wish to join. The old Eastern Block countries are changing their economies to be acceptable for EU admittance.I think you're confusing EU admittance per se, with the criteria for joining the common European currency. (What more proof do you need that this is more like a new country than "a trading group", than the existence of that project?)
Possibly I am confusing the two. So what are the criteria for being a good European these days?
That's waaay secondary -- like, if Vietnam or Paraguay or Malawi fulfilled the requirements for, say, federal highway funding, and tried to argue that therefore they should be a State. Wouldn't you first wonder what the heck they were doing in your Union in the first place? (Sheesh, you haven't even given Tijuana or Haiti statehood yet, have you? Or even Puerto Rico?!? So why the heck should we be forced to gobble up *Turkey*, of all thoroughly non-European places in the world???)
See note on Puerto Rico, it is up to the Puerto Ricans. And given they have fought in our wars at least since WWII, and we have extensive communities of Puerto Ricans in the U.S., we gave them the opportunity to decide. Get that, it is up to them to decide via their own referendum. They may choose not to. Get that choice bit?
Likewise, it seems to me, it is generally felt in Europe that this new country we're trying to put together is best served, for the forseeable future, by "growing organically" from what has gone before: That the European Union be, at least at its inception, a Union of Europeans, however qualified in secondary respects various African and Asian countries may be. Personally, I find that blindingly obvious and fully agree.
In other words, y'all wanting be living with people of your kind. How white of you.
And I must say I'm rather astonished that you Americans -- insular as you are, as a nation -- feel qualified to butt in and tell us whom *we* should include in *our* country. Did the Greeks, the Germans, or the Swedes tell *your* "Founding Fathers" which colonies should be included in this little break-out they were setting up? Did the Italians, the Danes, or the Portuguese?
Err...maybe it is because everytime there is a world problem, we get called to fix it and find...gee...this was originally started by Europeans. Mideast? Yup, European cockup. Balkans? Damn, Europeans again. Vietnam? French. WWII? Damn Europeans (but Japan helped...thanks, we took care of them ourselves). WWI, more Europeans. Maybe if you guys weren't such screwups we would be freer to leave you alone. Crusades...pesky Europeans again. We'll overlook the mess you made in Africa. Slavery in the U.S., given to us by Europeans. Caused a big Civil War here, over a million dead, you may have heard of it. We're still trying to recover from that wonderful legacy you gave us.
Naah...? Well, I didn't really think so. (Sure, the British did, and perhaps the French -- but only because that was *their* colonies breaking out, so they wanted nothing of the kind to happen at all.) Try to extend us the same courtesy, please.
Nope, European history has shown you guys are absolutely tone deaf when it comes to the rest of the world. We simply do not trust further you than we can spit a rat.