It was not my intention to offend the English. (Umm. Or the Welsh, or the Scotch or Irish.) But from the other side of the ocean you look very much like one country (excepting the Republic of Ireland, and I don't care to discuss the question of Sealand). And I'm not clear on exactly why that should be offensive.

I bumped into this issue a few times during the period I lived in London (UK). I agree, in many respects the governmental structure of the United States and Canada seem very much like that of the United kindom. Translate "state" or "province" into "country", and the UK looks like a federated structure with 4 provinces (I'm Canadian so ill use that term). But thats a superficial comparison. The identities of the nations was originally far more distinct than almost any of our provinces or states, with distinct languages, religious traditions, different traditions of law, etc.

The closest we see to these conditions in North America is probably the relationship of Quebec to Canada, and of course that of the Native Americans to the both Canada and the US and I guess to some extent Hawaii and Puerto Rico (no offense intended to any minority group not covered here :-). And I think you have to agree that all of these are much more sensitive relationships than simple federation. With the exception of Hawaii and the Native Americans, all of these are relatively new entities with much much less established tradition that those in Europe. Quebec or Puerto Rico are what a few hundred years old, Wales and Scotland and England and Ireland remember Roman invaders in their national memory.

I think its hard to grok European tribalism from a North American perspective. We just dont have the history or perspective to do so. I once made the mistake of pointing out to a young Irishman that in my travels I had found that the Scots, Irish, and English were closer to each than to any other group I had met. I was only saved by the fact that his girlfriend was quite clever and agreed with my position. Whether she was being clever and seeing my point, or being clever in calming down her BF i cant say :-)

Although i think it was the former, as i was making the point that despite the fact that Canadians love to spout on about how different we are to Americans, that we are (at least the Enlish speaking part of Canada) closest to them culturally than we are to any other group. IOW, the more similar two nations are the more likely that one of the two will vehemently object to being considered the same as the other. (Witness the average Kiwi objection to being mistaken for an Aussie, or vice versa, the way english Canadians object to being mistaken for American, and the way Scotts, Welsh or Irish object to being called English, Portugese for Spanish, Dutch for Germans, Swiss for Germans, yada yada yada).