DEPL
Posts: 13
Joined: 5/19/2011
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  HAPPY (belated) CANADA DAY!!   [:)
  
Personally, I love Canada - in the Summer Time.
The only place I've ever been where your face can freeze before you can wrap a scarf around it! What did they say on the TV, 23 seconds to freeze, from memory.
Geeeez, BRRRRrr, I still shiver just remembering it!!
The people are great, the Strippers are Naked and Hot - THE HOTTEST stripper I've ever seen was in Canada!!
And YES, the border guards are very friendly, and the US ones are just plain mean.
And unlike the rest of you kids, I'm not from Canada OR the USA, So at least I can see it from the outside. See the forest from the tree's. I'm an Aussie.
I've lived in both the US and Canada, and if anyone's arrogant, it's the US. "I am the greatest" he says, and anyone says otherwise, you'll punch his lights out.
Give it a break guys, Canada is great, and it IS DIFFERENT, it is NOT America Lite, as you put it, and I can understand why Canadians get pissed when someone says that - because it's a put down, and anyone, from anywhere, is going to stand-up and defend their country when you put it down. Just like an American would, if I put down America, and said it's like France Lite, and it's almost as free. Even if it's true.
And I have to AGREE with 'Arpig' on this point, when he said "A lot of people think that, but they are mistaken. Canada is not America lite, we are a different people with a very different outlook and mindset. We have different values."
That's why they have different laws, and as 'pahunkboy' said, he'd find it difficult to live in Canada, because of the extra Red Tape. And I'm sure they do have more red tape, but that's because they DO HAVE different values, Money Isn't God to them, there are other things that are important too, and the balance that they have achieved IS different because of that. So there may be a slight impediment to business, and the free flow of cash, but they also have a social welfare safety net that attempts to help those in need - I don't pretend to understand it well, and no doubt it's changed in the meantime anyway, but social medicine was a reality when I was there, while poor people in the richest (until recently) nation on earth still had their children die of perfectly preventable illness's, and malnutrition.
They have different priorities, and their children are valuable to them, all of them, not just those that can afford health care, and the health insurance that provides it.
I understand that the US has recently attempted to redress this under O'Bama, with much opposition. But the point I am trying to make is that Canada IS DIFFERENT. Perhaps if Canada came into existence after the USA of today existed, and was largely composed of dissidents breaking off from the USA, then perhaps there would be some justification for saying they were "America Lite", but they aren't. That's like saying that France is Germany lite.
Canada is an independent country, and it should be accorded the respect that it deserves; the very same respect that US citizens expect others to show them. By NOT doing so, you simply belittle yourself, and show your own pompous arrogance for what it is.
It's why you have a terrorism problem. Some US citizens, and some US companies, go into other countries and push American "culture" down their throat's against their will, and when they don't like it and complain, you don't listen, because you're so sure that the American way is the right way, the only way. But how is that freedom; where is their freedom to choose how their country operates, what values they have, what values they wish to instill in their children.
When you disrespect their ways, their customs, and their wishes, and you overpower their objections with money, effectively bribe their politicians with it, or withdraw "Aid" when they don't comply with US demands, dissent grows amongst the ordinary people who feel powerless against it. And dissent becomes dissidents, and dissidents become terrorists, because they cannot fight a one-to-one war with America, on America's terms - they're too poor to be able to wage a real war - they just want to strike out at their "enemy". Make them feel some of the pain that they do. And hopefully listen to their grievances at some point.
But still, you don't listen. You're John Wayne, and Rambo, and go in and blow things up. You don't make things better, you've just made lots more terrorists. And no matter how many bombs you drop, short of blowing up the whole world, you'll never get them all.
For a small fraction of that money that US spent on the war machine, you could have helped them - no strings attached, genuinely - and you could have made friends with them, maybe not all of them admittedly, but the vast majority of them.
You've turned a few extremists into a mighty horde, and if you don't wake up soon, you'll drag all of us into world war three.
America has done many good things in the past, and still does, but on this point they seem to have missed the point - many of these "terrorists" are, or at least were, just ordinary people with families and children of their own, and they fight for the same rights and freedoms that Americans expect - the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and freedom of religion too. It may not be judao-christian, but haven't they got the right too??
And what if money isn't the most important thing to them, or some other thing in their society seems wrong to us. The point is that it is NOT for US to decide how they live, but for them to choose. The thing that we need to do is let them, within their own country, their own community. It's one thing to offer help, but only if they get to choose what that help is, and how it is applied. It needs to be controlled and administered by them, not the US. Otherwise it is simply manipulation, with a hidden agenda - that favours the USA, and not the local community.
All too often, US "Aide" is just a political tool, and "Aide" is just an excuse - but the people know that, and often resent it.
Again, my point is not to stir up a hornets nest, but to point out the arrogance that a perceived superiority brings, and the disrespect that is inherent in using, or referring to Canada as "America Lite". It is precisely the same attitude that has caused a dislike for Americans all around the world, and it is such a shame, as America was once truly a "man among men" in terms of statesmanship, and the betterment of humanity and the human condition.
I simply wish to encourage a return to that, as I have travelled the world, and I have heard the comment too many times to count, "those damn arrogant, fucking Americans", or words to that effect. Inherent within that is the implicit knowledge of the financial, economic, and military power that lies behind that arrogance.
In many respects America has a certain superiority, but inherent in having power, is the need, the requirement, AND the responsibility, to wield it wisely, and not to become the bully that America is perceived to be in many parts of the world.
For that is the root cause of this terrorism epidemic, and unless America fixes it, and soon, it will be it's undoing.
Oh, and what makes Canada different? I think that they are accepting - I really noticed that in Quebec, the punk scene there, the piercings, the clothes and hair, no-one blinked an eye at it, and in shops too, they just had them, and it was no big deal; whereas in the states, they made them wear band-aids over their tiny piercings. Toronto I saw much the same as in Quebec. Even in Australia that sort of BS goes on in places.
And I don't know all that much about the military deployments of Canada, but I do know that there are several similarities between them and Australia in their support of freedom, as quite often I've noticed that Canada supports Australia's stance on issues Internationally, or we deploy together.
I haven't gone out of my way to notice, but it pops up on the national news here from time to time. As a former fellow Common-Wealth country, Canada has some real similarities to Australia. And although to look at, Australia may seem the same as the US to a visiting American, I can tell you that there are stark differences between us and the USA. Our values and attitudes are VERY different, and I tripped over them all the time in the USA, quite often expensively so. Ours attitudes to sick days for one.
Also, you have great big swathes of wonderful natural vista's, and I love that - it's uniquely Canadian, but it feels strangely familiar to me, as Australia has that too, but Glaciers and red dusty outback Nullabor Plains is completely different, or our rain forests, or temperate ones, but the impression of size and space to just stretch out for miles and miles, with nary a soul in sight, that feels like home to me. Were it not for my aversion to cold, I might've stayed. The lakes and forrest's I did manage to see were gorgeous.
I suppose it is inevitable that there will be some who will engage in personal attacks as a result of this post - please show your intelligence, and respect, and keep it to the subject/s that I have discussed. Personal attacks simply show your ineptitude, and prove it to everyone.
Thanks.
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RE: O Canada! What makes it special to you? - 
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