英美合并會(huì)是什么樣子?（二）

Becca Royal-Gordon
What would happen if the UK joined the United States as a new state?
Let us suppose that a 51st state, the British Isles, were admitted to the unx. (I’ll explain the name change in a moment. And yes, calling it “British Isles” would not be accurate because it wouldn’t include the Republic of Ireland, but Baja California didn’t stop us from calling my state “California”, either.)

如果英國作為一個(gè)新州加入美國，會(huì)發(fā)生什么？
讓我們假設(shè)第51個(gè)州不列顛群島被接納為聯(lián)邦。（我稍后會(huì)解釋更名的原因。是的，稱其為“不列顛島”是不準(zhǔn)確的，因?yàn)樗鼪]包括愛爾蘭共和國，但下加利福尼亞州也沒有阻止我們稱我所在的州為“加利福尼亞”。）

Demographics
To begin with, here’s a statement that will put things in proportion: In the newly enlarged United States, 16% of the population would be in the British Isles. Its population would be slightly smaller than the entire Midwest combined. There is no current state that’s as large as the British Isles would be—California is a little more than half its size. London would be neck-and-neck with New York for the title of America’s largest city (they both had populations of around 8.4 million about five years ago).
The UK could instead be split up, with the four constituent countries becoming four separate states, but because it contains 82% of the UK’s population, England would still be the largest US state, comparable to the entire Northeast. Scotland would be about the size of Colorado; Wales would be similar to Iowa; and Northern Ireland comparable to West Virginia. However, I don’t think splitting the UK in this fashion would make much sense;

人口統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)
首先，這里有一個(gè)按比例排列的聲明：在新擴(kuò)大的美國，16%的人口將在不列顛群島。它的人口將比整個(gè)中西部的總和略少。目前沒有哪個(gè)州能像不列顛群島那樣大——加利福尼亞州的面積只有它的一半多一點(diǎn)。倫敦將與紐約并駕齊驅(qū)，成為美國最大城市（大約五年前，倫敦和紐約的人口都在840萬左右）。
英國可能會(huì)分裂，四個(gè)組成國變成四個(gè)獨(dú)立的州，但由于其人口占英國人口的82%，英格蘭仍然是美國最大的州，與整個(gè)東北部相當(dāng)。蘇格蘭的面積大約相當(dāng)于科羅拉多州；威爾士將類似于愛荷華州；北愛爾蘭與西弗吉尼亞州相當(dāng)。然而，我認(rèn)為以這種方式分裂英國沒有多大意義；

Constitutional Law
The Constitution of the United States most likely could not be amended to accommodate British demands. Even whatever treaty the US and UK made to create the unx would not be able to do so. Treaties cannot change the Constitution; only an amendment passed and ratified under Article Five can do that. The amendment process requires the approval of three-quarters of the states, so even after the British Isles were admitted, they would only add one vote (or four votes) to the “yes” column, against the fifty votes that already existed.
Parliament, on the other hand, can essentially remodel British constitutional law as they wish, because there is no difficult amendment process in the UK. I suspect Britain would have to adapt to the American legal system, not the other way around—American law is simply not flexible enough to allow it.
That means the UK would have to accept the US Constitution as they found it. The most obvious implications here are in the Bill of Rights: Brits would gain a Second Amendment right to bear arms that would severely limit the UK’s gun control, a First Amendment right to free expression that would blunt their hate speech laws and curtail their overbroad libel laws, a First Amendment right to freedom of religion that would disestablish the Church of England, and a Fifth Amendment right to just compensation that might limit the left wing’s ability to nationalize (state-ize?) private businesses.

憲法
美國憲法很可能無法修改以適應(yīng)英國的要求。即使是美國和英國為建立聯(lián)盟而簽訂的任何條約都無法做到這一點(diǎn)。條約不能改變憲法；只有根據(jù)第五條通過并批準(zhǔn)的修正案才能做到這一點(diǎn)。修正程序需要獲得四分之三的州的批準(zhǔn)，因此即使在不列顛群島被接納后，他們也只會(huì)在“贊成”一欄增加一票（或四票），而不是已經(jīng)存在的50票。
另一方面，議會(huì)基本上可以隨心所欲地修改英國憲法，因?yàn)樾薷挠鴳椃ú⒉焕щy。我懷疑英國必須要適應(yīng)美國的法律體系，而不是相反——美國法律根本不夠靈活，不允許這樣做。
這意味著英國必須接受美國憲法。最明顯的影響是在《權(quán)利法案》中：英國人將獲得第二修正案中攜帶武器的權(quán)利，這將嚴(yán)重限制英國的槍支管制，第一修正案的宗教自由權(quán)將廢除英國國教，第五修正案的公正補(bǔ)償權(quán)可能會(huì)限制左翼將私營企業(yè)國有化的能力。

But perhaps the most shocking implication would be found in Article Four:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this unx a Republican Form of Government…
In other words, the royal family would have to go. They could still live there, of course, and they could still own palaces and fortresses and crowns and whatnot, but they would have to be private citizens with no special power in the government. Hence why I’m calling this state “British Isles”, not “United Kingdom”: It would no longer be a kingdom.
(To Americans, of course, this would represent the final, complete triumph of the Founding Fathers’ revolution over George III’s monarchy. But the Brits would not see it in terms nearly as romantic as that.)
Interestingly, the United States’s flexible federalist system would probably mean that three things would not have to go:
The parliamentary system. The Constitution is not actually that picky about how state governments should be structured: It merely requires that they must be republics, they must not deny the vote based on race, gender, or age above 18, and any legislative districts must contain approximately the same number of people. It does not require that they have fixed terms, separate branches, or any of the other common features of a state government. It does not even technically require a written constitution, although Congress has traditionally required one be written and submitted to them for approval before admitting a state. That means Parliament could come in nearly intact.

但也許最令人震驚的影響可能會(huì)出現(xiàn)在第四修正案：
美國應(yīng)保證本聯(lián)邦的每個(gè)州都實(shí)行共和政體
換言之，王室成員必須離開。當(dāng)然，他們?nèi)匀豢梢宰≡谀抢铮麄內(nèi)匀豢梢該碛袑m殿、堡壘和王冠等等，但他們必定是成為政府中沒有特殊權(quán)力的普通公民。因此，我稱這個(gè)州為“不列顛群島”，而不是“聯(lián)合王國”：它將不再是一個(gè)王國。
（當(dāng)然，對美國人來說，這將代表著開國元?jiǎng)讉儗讨稳谰髡w的徹底勝利。但英國人不會(huì)這么浪漫地看待這件事）
有趣的是，美國靈活的聯(lián)邦制可能意味著有三件事不必放棄：
議會(huì)制度，事實(shí)上，憲法對州政府的結(jié)構(gòu)并沒有那么挑剔：它只是要求州政府必須是共和國，他們不得因種族、性別或年齡超過18歲為由而拒絕投票，任何立法區(qū)的人數(shù)都必須大致相同。它不要求他們有固定的任期，獨(dú)立的分支機(jī)構(gòu)，或州政府的任何其他共同特征。嚴(yán)格意義來說，它甚至不需要一部成文憲法，盡管國會(huì)傳統(tǒng)上要求在承認(rèn)一個(gè)州之前，必須起草一部成文憲法并提交國會(huì)批準(zhǔn)。這意味著議會(huì)可能幾乎完好無損。

The English common law. Federal and English common law diverged after the Revolution, but there is absolutely no reason the British Isles could not take English common law as their state law. Louisiana’s state law, for instance, is not even a form of common law at all, but a form of French civil law. Of course, in federal matters, US federal law would still apply within the British Isles.
The National Health Service. It is not illegal for a US state to have a single-payer health care system; in fact, Vermont was planning to set up a single-payer system under Obamacare. They changed course because the taxes were too high, but the British Isles would be quite used to paying the taxes necessary for single-payer health care. Of course, the NHS would not extend outside the British Isles, but it could pay the medical bills of British citizens visiting other states.
Finally, although Kelly Martin asserts that Britons born before admittance would not be eligible to be president, that’s actually an open question. It’s not clear if people born in a country which later became part of the United States thereby become natural-born citizens. The caselaw here is extremely thin, and it’s pretty likely that the Supreme Court would end up deciding it was a political question, meaning it was up to Congress to decide exactly what “natural-born citizen” actually meant.

英國普通法。聯(lián)邦法和英國普通法在獨(dú)立戰(zhàn)爭后出現(xiàn)了分歧，但不列顛群島絕對沒有理由不采用英國普通法作為自己的州法。例如，它甚至根本不是普通法的一種形式，而是法國民法的一種形式。當(dāng)然，在聯(lián)邦事務(wù)方面，美國聯(lián)邦法律仍將適用于在不列顛群島。
英國醫(yī)療服務(wù)制度。美國一個(gè)州擁有單一付款人的醫(yī)療保健系統(tǒng)并不違法；事實(shí)上，佛蒙特州正計(jì)劃在奧巴馬醫(yī)改下建立一個(gè)單一付款人制度。他們改變了路線，因?yàn)槎愂仗吡?，但不列顛群島會(huì)很習(xí)慣為單一付款人的醫(yī)療保健支付必要的稅收。當(dāng)然， 英國醫(yī)療服務(wù)制度不會(huì)擴(kuò)展到不列顛群島以外，但它可以支付英國公民到其他國家旅游的醫(yī)療費(fèi)用。
最后，盡管凱利·馬丁斷言，在進(jìn)入美國之前出生的英國人沒有資格成為總統(tǒng)，但這實(shí)際上是一個(gè)懸而未決的問題。目前尚不清楚出生在一個(gè)后來成為美國一部分的國家的人是否因此成為“本國出生的公民”。這方面的判例法極為缺乏說服力，最高法院很可能最終會(huì)認(rèn)定這是一個(gè)政治問題，這意味著“本國出生的公民”的確切含義應(yīng)由國會(huì)決定。

Politics
This would be a huge mess all around.
The most important thing to understand here is that nearly the entire political spectrum in the UK is shifted left relative to the US’s. (From a European perspective, you would probably instead say the US’s is shifted right relative to the norm.) Thus, the UK’s conservative party (the Conservatives) is actually comparable to the US’s liberal party (the Democrats). The UK’s liberal party, Labour, is far enough left ;
That means the immediate effect would be that both the UK’s left and the US’s right would be disempowered by the insertion of the UK into US politics. US Republicans would probably reach for their guns, while UK Labourites would mobilize workers to create paralyzing strikes.
However, the long-term effects are much harder to predict. we might expect that the Democrats and Conservatives would work together. But political parties are ultimately coalitions of interest groups who happen to find common ground in certain areas, and the Democratic coalition is quite different from the Conservative coalition.
Ultimately, I imagine the process of combining the two party systems as rather like two galaxies colliding:
The two political systems would eventually coalesce into a coherent whole, but the process would be chaotic and disruptive, with little of the original structure surviving.

政治
這將是一場巨大的混亂局勢
這里需要理解的最重要的一點(diǎn)是，與美國相比，英國幾乎整個(gè)政治領(lǐng)域都存在左傾。（從歐洲的角度來看，你可能會(huì)說美國的保守黨相對于正常情況是向右傾的。）因此，英國的保守黨（頑固派）實(shí)際上與美國的自由黨（民主黨）相當(dāng)。英國的自由黨工黨（Labour）已經(jīng)足夠左傾；
這意味著，英國介入美國政治的直接影響將是會(huì)削弱英國左翼和美國右翼的權(quán)力美國共和黨人可能會(huì)拿起槍，而英國工黨將動(dòng)員工人發(fā)動(dòng)癱瘓性罷工。
然而，長期影響卻很難預(yù)測。實(shí)際上，我們可以預(yù)期民主黨和保守黨會(huì)合作。但政黨最終是利益集團(tuán)的聯(lián)盟，他們碰巧在某些領(lǐng)域找到了共同點(diǎn)，而民主黨的聯(lián)合政府與保守黨的聯(lián)合政府截然不同。
最終，我把兩黨系統(tǒng)結(jié)合的過程想象成兩個(gè)星系碰撞的過程:
這兩個(gè)政治體系最終會(huì)融合成一個(gè)連貫的整體，但這一過程將是混亂和破壞性的，原始結(jié)構(gòu)幾乎無法幸存。

Political Culture
Britons find American patriotic displays unsettling and distasteful—they find it strange that we play the national anthem before professional sports matches and disturbing that our schoolchildren recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day. They’re repulsed by our habit of mixing religion and politics—no mainstream British politician would end a speech by saying “God bless Britain” or insert their religious views into debates about social issues like abortion. They consider our unwillingness to have government handle basic needs like railways, healthcare, and broadcasting inexplicable and exasperating.
Americans would find the presence of mainstream British politicians who openly describe themselves as “socialists” shocking. We would be unnerved by their fluid attitude towards constitutions (the British “constitution” is not a single written document with special amendment procedures, but rather a collection of ordinary laws about the structure of the United Kingdom which Parliament is free to alter at any time). We find continued British tolerance of vestiges of feudalism, like the established church, the nobility, and the royal family, anachronistic, bizarre, and charming in a faintly condescending way. We would find their tax structures intolerable and their trust in government institutions na?ve. (Did you know the BBC is funded by a ￡157.50 per year tax on households with color televisions? And that it’s one of their largest broadcasters, and carries political news?)

政治文化
英國人對美國人的愛國主義表現(xiàn)感到不安和厭惡——他們對我們在職業(yè)體育比賽前演奏國歌感到奇怪，對我們的小學(xué)生每天背誦效忠誓言感到不安。他們對我們將宗教和政治混為一談的習(xí)慣感到反感——沒有哪個(gè)英國主流政治家會(huì)在演講結(jié)束時(shí)說“上帝保佑英國”，或者把他們的宗教觀點(diǎn)插入到有關(guān)墮胎等社會(huì)問題的辯論中。他們認(rèn)為，我們不愿意讓政府處理鐵路、醫(yī)療保健和廣播等基本需求，這令人費(fèi)解和憤怒。
美國人會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，英國主流政客公開稱自己是“社會(huì)主義者”的這一現(xiàn)象令人震驚。他們對憲法的不穩(wěn)定態(tài)度會(huì)讓我們感到不安(英國的“憲法”不是一個(gè)具有特殊修正程序的單一書面文件，而是關(guān)于聯(lián)合王國結(jié)構(gòu)的普通法律的集合，議會(huì)可以隨時(shí)自由修改這些法律)。我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，英國人對封建主義的殘余，如國教、貴族和王室，一直保持著寬容的態(tài)度，這是不合時(shí)宜的、怪異的，而且有點(diǎn)屈尊俯就。我們會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們的稅收結(jié)構(gòu)令人難以忍受，他們對政府機(jī)構(gòu)的信任也很幼稚。（你知道英國廣播公司的資金來源是每年向擁有彩電的家庭征收157.5英鎊的稅收嗎？它是他們最大的廣播公司之一，傳播政治新聞？）
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.top-shui.cn 轉(zhuǎn)載請注明出處

Perhaps most importantly, the United States is held together by a “civil religion”—a reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, symbols like the flag and national anthem, and ultimately the nation itself—that the British would find alien and perhaps even dangerous. Like most of the European countries that saw their cities reduced to rubble in World War II, the United Kingdom rejected nationalism after World War II. America never has, and that has long made Europeans nervous about our political culture. When we say “God bless America”, they hear “Gott mit uns”.
Even more so than the concrete issues of adjusting constitutions, rights, laws, and political parties, bridging the gap between these very different cultures would be a Herculean task, and if it’s not done, it could permanently destabilize the United States. And nobody wants an unstable superpower.

也許最重要的是，美國被一種“公民宗教”團(tuán)結(jié)在一起——對開國元?jiǎng)?、《?dú)立宣言》和《憲法》、國旗和國歌等象征的崇敬，以及最終對國家本身的崇敬——英國人會(huì)覺得這是陌生的，甚至可能是危險(xiǎn)的。像大多數(shù)在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)中城市被夷為平地的歐洲國家一樣，英國在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)后拒絕民族主義。美國從來沒有這樣做過，這一直讓歐洲人對我們的政治文化感到不安。當(dāng)我們說“上帝保佑美國”時(shí)，他們聽到的是“上帝與我們同在（Gott mit uns）”。
甚至比調(diào)整憲法、權(quán)利、法律和政黨等具體問題更重要的是，彌合這些截然不同的文化之間的差距將是一項(xiàng)艱巨的任務(wù)，如果做不到，它可能會(huì)永久地破壞美國的穩(wěn)定。沒有人想要一個(gè)不穩(wěn)定的超級大國。

Other Concerns
The US and UK have incompatible electrical systems, TV standards, and even car designs (due to driving on opposite sides of the road). The UK has converted to metric far more than the US has. And, of course, the US and UK are divided by a common language: though they both (primarily) speak English, they speak different dialects and disagree on how to spell and pronounce many words. These are important because one of the major advantages of the US is that, because there are common nationwide standards, commerce can flow freely across state borders. The British Isles would have to either get with the program or lose out on these benefits.
One other issue is that internationally, it’s actually quite helpful for the US that the UK is a separate country. For instance, the US and Britain both hold permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Having a close friend by your side helps both countries get the things they think need doing done in all sorts of international settings like this. If the UK became a state, both nations would lose this advantage.

其他關(guān)注點(diǎn)
美國和英國的電氣系統(tǒng)、電視標(biāo)準(zhǔn)甚至汽車設(shè)計(jì)都不兼容（英國左側(cè)行駛、美國右側(cè)行駛）。相比美國，英國改用公制單位更為徹底。當(dāng)然，美國和英國的分歧在于擁有共同的語言：盡管他們都（主要）說英語，但他們說不同的方言，在如何拼寫和許多單詞發(fā)音上存在分歧。這些都很重要，因?yàn)槊绹闹饕獌?yōu)勢之一是，由于有共同的全國標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，商業(yè)可以自由地跨州流動(dòng)。不列顛群島要么加入這個(gè)計(jì)劃，要么失去這些好處。
另一個(gè)問題是，在國際上，實(shí)際上英國作為一個(gè)獨(dú)立的國家而存在對美國是很有幫助的。例如，美國和英國都是聯(lián)合國安理會(huì)常任理事國。有一個(gè)親密的朋友在你身邊可以幫助兩國在各種國際環(huán)境中完成他們認(rèn)為需要做的事情；如果英國成為一個(gè)州，兩國都將失去這一優(yōu)勢。

Realistically…
It’s not going to happen.
Few Britons will want to give up the Crown.
No existing US state will want to give up so much of its power in Congress to the UK.
No national politician in the UK—currently the biggest fish in a comparatively small pond—will want to be demoted to a state politician in the US.
No Republican will want to bring 64 million liberals into the American electorate. They already complain about 12 million Democratic-leaning illegal immigrants in the US—and those people don’t even have the right to vote.
No Labourite will want to become part of a nation where “socialist” is a dirty word.
No Democrat or Conservative will want to send their party into a chaotic political realignment.
On the world stage, neither nation will want to lose the advantages of having a friendly face in every organization and conference.
And perhaps most importantly, nobody in the new United States would even be able to agree on how “nationalize” should be spelled—or, as Daryl Beggs points out in the comments, how “spelled” should be spelt.
For all of these reasons and many more, it is extremely unlikely that the UK might become a 51st state someday.

現(xiàn)實(shí)地說這是不會(huì)發(fā)生的。
很少有英國人愿意放棄王室。
沒有一個(gè)現(xiàn)有的美國州會(huì)愿意將其在國會(huì)的大部分權(quán)力交給英國。
英國目前是一個(gè)相對較小的池塘里最大的魚，沒有一個(gè)國家級別的政治家愿意被降級為美國的州級別的政治家。
沒有共和黨人愿意把6400萬自由主義者納入美國選民。他們已經(jīng)在抱怨美國有1200萬傾向民主黨的非法移民——而這些人甚至都沒有投票權(quán)哦。
沒有一個(gè)工黨人會(huì)想成為這樣的國家的一部分:認(rèn)為“社會(huì)主義者”是骯臟的字眼。
沒有一個(gè)民主黨人或保守黨會(huì)想讓他們的政黨陷入一場混亂的政治重組局勢。
在世界舞臺(tái)上，英國和美國都不想失去在每一個(gè)組織和會(huì)議上都有對自己持友好態(tài)度的面孔的優(yōu)勢。
也許最重要的是，在新美國，甚至沒有人能夠就“nationalize”應(yīng)該如何拼寫達(dá)成一致——或者，正如達(dá)里爾·貝格斯(Daryl Beggs)在評論中指出的那樣，“拼寫”應(yīng)該如何拼寫。
由于所有這些以及更多的原因，英國極不可能在某一天成為美國的第51個(gè)州。