{"id":7857,"date":"2026-08-23T21:18:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T20:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=7857"},"modified":"2026-08-23T21:18:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T20:18:48","slug":"the-thinking-kat-joining-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=7857","title":{"rendered":"The Thinking ‘Kat: Joining America?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the wake of Donald Trump recently suggesting Canadians want Canada to become a US state (they really don’t, but Trump is<\/strong> delusional), I remembered a lengthy discussion on an old message board where someone tried to suggest Britain might benefit as a US state, and it got me thinking. Would there be any conceivable benefit to Britain become part of the USA?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The short answer is no. The longer answer is an interesting exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am struggling to think of any reason for the UK – and indeed most nations – to become part of the USA. Don’t get me wrong, I do think there are things America actually does pretty well, but the fundamentals, like education, healthcare, and public safety? On these critical aspects, I would always favour British approaches, especially in where healthcare and safety are concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve written in the past about the comparative performance of the US and UK healthcare systems, and they are fairly similar, with similar outcomes, yet crucially, no one in the UK is going bankrupt over medical bills. This is the single biggest reason why I prefer the UK healthcare system, particularly at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of public safety, I would never, ever want US-style gun laws and policies in the UK. The UK is substantially safer in terms of murder rates, and generally safer in terms of violent crime. The gun problem is the singlest biggest reason why I would oppose US policies governing the UK. There has yet to be any evidence to suggest that guns produce a safer society, and gun culture has overriden common sense, to the point where the right to guns means more than the safety of children in schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go on, but I am tired, and will have to ponder expanding this post. It might well be worth further exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to The Thinking ‘Kat<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of Donald Trump recently suggesting Canadians want Canada to become a US state (they really don’t, but Trump is delusional), I remembered…<\/p>\n

Continue readingThe Thinking ‘Kat: Joining America?<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-and-society","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image-12-scaled.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7857"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7863,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7857\/revisions\/7863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}