Originally Posted by sylphaen
The Austro-Hungarian empire was a mess.
|
Very weak argument.
Because it was very decentralised, being a feudal state including freshly conquered/inherited regions and city states. I mean it included the Balkans after taking it from Ottoman occupation. The Hapsburgs were quite busy expanding/consolidating and in constant competition with Bohemia and other nearby nations while trying to integrate hundreds of local cultures. Which btw, today have merged laws to a far greater extend than when the Hapsburgs tried to start that. And of course that met with local resistance: power was being stripped from local (war)lords!
So was the Holy Roman Empire, BECAUSE it was highly decentralised and everyone competed for their own dominance.
But the Roman Empire? It had one legislation
Was the kingdom of Poland-Lithuania unsuccesful despite being wedged in between Rus, the HRE and Bohemia?
How come France with all its departments and all the local cultures (Norman, Burgundian, Breton, Cosmopolitan, Dauphine, etc.) can have one set of national laws?
In fact, standardisation of for instance the postal services by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I did a lot to help facilitate things within the empire! Having one currency within countries where before each city could have its own coin facilitated a lot of things as well.
Having the System Internationale, in other words, the metric system, is a bad thing now? I mean, there's actually aircraft crashes that occured because people had to convert to other measurement systems and put too little kerosine in the tank! If the system had been standardised, that would not have occured.
The same can be said for laws: the fast majority (95%) of laws can easily be standardised. If you look at the USA for instance, you don't have separate cultures in each state. You may have differences in which subculture is more dominant, but not exactly different cultures.
Amish, Mormons, protestants, indians, etc. will have to abide to the same road laws as the remainder of the state. (Sub)-culture is not a replacement for standardised safety tests. It is not an argument for differences in basic laws. The majority of values are shared by all people in the nation. On top of that there are those laws (like environment protection laws) that are transposed on them because it's been determined by experts in a certain field that outweighs public opinion. If public opinion and culture says "throwing chemical waste in the river, but only dumping it near the border so it flows accross it", then that isn't exactly fine because it's "local culture" or "not our problem". In fact, it may mean "culture" (habits, norms and values) are in need of change through enlightenment. Yet loads of nations use this policy to place annoying and polluting things on their neighbours doorstep. And loads of politicians use the culture argument to dominate other (sub)cultures within their realm.
In several muslem nations for instance, non-muslems had to wear specific clothing, they got extra taxes and in general were treated as second rate citizens (even if not burned like the catholics did to say the Cathars).
And yes, we had such issues with Germany putting nuclear power plants, NATO airfields (with airstrips aimed at the border) and heavy industry at the border of our nation, polluting our nation's air, ground and water, as well as France and Belgium putting toxic chemical plants on their borders next to a river that would flow straight to the Netherlands so they could dump their heavy metal and chemical waste somewhere cheap without creating a hazard for the own national populace. International laws took care of most of that.
Btw, speaking of road safety... US road safety testing is different from European and Japanese safety testing, because iirc Europeans focus on impacts on moving objects and pedestrians, while the US just test on stationary solid object impacts. Both have their merits and flaws, so STANDARDISE THAT and the requirements so you can compare all cars properly when they show a safety test score!
Standardisation is generally a good thing. Is universal suffrage unsuited for certain nations because the local culture is male dominated? Is separation of state and church a bad thing for muslem nations because only the minorities in those nations would gain protection from it?
Culture is a poor excuse for abuse of power. Culture dominated laws usualy lead to prejudice and discrimination, so they should not be a basis of standardisation. Principles behind laws should be non-arbitrary, fair and beneficial to all and trump culture.
In fact, if you want to see how it works when different laws apply in a federal nation... Look at Belgium and cry.