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Comment by jimnotgym | Hacker News Reader

Just like every county in the US can have different laws. An example might be sales tax rates in Florida.

Maybe the top poster should say that the map of North America should be dotted with micro-states like the USA (maybe even like Canada, I don't know)

That way it wouldn't sound like an American trying to paint Europe as some kind of parochial backwater of medieval fiefdoms.

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Yeah, he definitely did not word it well. I’m from Canada, and how you describe it as North America having micro states is also kind of true. There are states, territories and provinces, across North America with a lot of local control, but there are also local native reservations that have a lot of sovereignty. For example, there are plenty of tribal lands close to where I grow up that have completely separate laws from the provenance that they are in, they deal directly with the federal government and even do their own policing. Although you almost never see those boarders on maps, there’s a strong argument that they’re a type of micro state, and Canada probably has multiple dozens of them if not hundreds with different languages and laws.

> trying to paint Europe as some kind of parochial backwater of medieval fiefdoms

no idea how you got "parochial backwater" from "microstate", it bothers you way more than it should

some of the most impressive, highly developed, secular, constitutional republics are microstates. whatever you associate the word with is not what I associate the word with.

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