Does Canada Understand The Cost Of Freedom?

[anticlimates]

I am from Western Canada and still dont support mindless and pointless hatred of America, I dont understand any Canadian that can honestly simply hate someone else for being from a different country. Anti-Americans are most bigoted people on this planet.

What is different between hating someone for their skin color and hating someone for where they were born?

I don't hate America or Americans.

Let me get this straight....I choose not to support America because of the direction it's money goes, and that makes me a hater?

Or was it the "America can go to hell" comment? Maybe I should be more specific...George Bush and his supporters can go to hell. Idiots who think Canada should be beholden to an idiot like Bush can go to hell. America has some growing up to do and then some apologies to make. That's not hatred pal, that's a fact.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear anticlimates,

Why would I be dead within a "matter of days" if we didn't get American crap? Be specific, please!

Amen, brother! Canadians have every resource needed to actually survive. Hollywood may be worth billions, but Bill Gates' carcass would only feed me for a week at most.

[PocketRocket]

Okay. I'm probably gonna get flamed for at least part of this, but so be it.

America is a truly great nation. Possibly the greatest nation history has seen up until now.

But that doesn't mean we like to listen to America telling us how much better she is than all the rest of us, no more than anyone likes the high-school football jock who snubs all of his "lesser" classmates.

Definitely the strongest nation ever. Definitely the richest nation ever.

But to me, and to many others, this economic and military strength does not equate to moral high ground, which has been claimed by the USA, and by her current leader.

The ongoing blathering jingoism, the recurring "USA,USA" chanting, the self-congratulatory attitudes, the claims of carrying out God's work, etc etc.....

It almost sounds like someone trying to overcome an inferiority complex, which is always so annoying to those around.

[August1991]

Dear anticlimates,

Why would I be dead within a "matter of days" if we didn't get American crap? Be specific, please!

Amen, brother! Canadians have every resource needed to actually survive. Hollywood may be worth billions, but Bill Gates' carcass would only feed me for a week at most.

Most Canadians live in cities and, as another poster pointed out before, we rely on trucks to deliver everything we buy. Most trucks used in Canada are made in the US.

I have chosen only one obvious way in which we rely on Americans. And Thelonious, you may not eat software but many critical services rely on software.

My point is less to argue that we rely on the US than it is to say that we rely on others around the world for our welfare.

But that doesn't mean we like to listen to America telling us how much better she is than all the rest of us, no more than anyone likes the high-school football jock who snubs all of his "lesser" classmates.

The term anthropomorphic usually applies to situations where people view animals as people. ("Fifi is so smart. She always knows when I'm in a bad mood.")

Well, pocket, you have just turned the "United States" into a person. Needless to say, you have chosen to make that person "big".

The US is about 300 million people all going about their lives in many, many different ways. The US federal government is composed of millions. Power in the US is diffuse.

Your grotesque generalization says more about you than about the subject of your generalization.

But to me, and to many others, this economic and military strength does not equate to moral high ground, which has been claimed by the USA, and by her current leader.

You make it sound as though a dictator, one person, can command this "economic and military strength". It just ain't so.

As to morality, some foreign jerks flew planes into big buildings, killing several thousand people. The US military is being used to respond to this threat.

In Canada on the other hand, the FLQ killed a cabinet minister and Trudeau put the army in the streets of Quebec, in front of schools and had several hundred innocent Canadians arrested without charge. Many Canadians applauded his response and thought it was appropriate.

Now, where is the "morality"?

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear August1991,

Thelonious, you may not eat software but many critical services rely on software.

While it is true, many services have come to depend on software, it is not the 'be-all and end-all'. Computers make some things faster (and some things slower), but the world still moved on, trade flourished, as did science, without them.

As to morality, some foreign jerks flew planes into big buildings, killing several thousand people. The US military is being used to respond to this threat.

Hate to nitpick here, but the 9/11 commission report gave the number of civilians killed at under 3,000, (not including the EMS and law enforcement casualties), so 2,000+ is not 'several thousand'. Further, a threat is an impending action, so 'the US military response' is not to the 'threat of 9/11, because it already happened.

QUOTE 

But to me, and to many others, this economic and military strength does not equate to moral high ground, which has been claimed by the USA, and by her current leader.

You make it sound as though a dictator, one person, can command this "economic and military strength". It just ain't so.

It may take the will of more than one person, true, but not by much. Evidently Bush Jr. had planned to invade Iraq from his first day in office. He had help with the scheme(and I'm sure more than a few words of encouragement) from his father's NSC advisor, Dick Cheney.

[Black Dog]

I am from Western Canada and still dont support mindless and pointless hatred of America, I dont understand any Canadian that can honestly simply hate someone else for being from a different country.

Can we hate them (or at least be a somewhat cross at them) for being such a bunch of knuckleheads? It seems the current climate of so-called anti-Americanismis due to Americans' choices, not their place of birth.

Anti-Americans are most bigoted people on this planet.

Ohferchrissake.

As soon as we start lynching vacationers from south of the border, or beating them and tying them to fence posts or the back bumpers of pick up trucks, then we'll talk.

What is different between hating someone for their skin color and hating someone for where they were born?

As I said, no one hates Americans becaus ethey are American.

[WageSlave]

1) Americans had to fight in WWII and end NAZISM so that all (and very much Canada could have its freedom).

2)The brillance of Ronald Reagan eventually sent USSR into demise and saved Canada from Geographically being the battleground of 2 nuclear armed countries.

1) Don't forget that American capital played a huge role in bringing the Nazi's to power.

2) First of all, explain the strategic reasoning behind which Canada would ever have been a nucular target, don't bother because it's a buch of paranoid bullshit! Second of all, "the brilliance of Ronald Ragan"? It's talk like that, that makes me hope for Bush to be assasinated, seems like no matter what kind of idiot he is, he'll be remembered as some kind of heroic wise guy, because the fascists say so. I'd just like to see him die young.

[Freedom]

1) Americans had to fight in WWII and end NAZISM so that all (and very much Canada could have its freedom).

2)The brillance of Ronald Reagan eventually sent USSR into demise and saved Canada from Geographically being the battleground of 2 nuclear armed countries.

1) Don't forget that American capital played a huge role in bringing the Nazi's to power.

2) First of all, explain the strategic reasoning behind which Canada would ever have been a nucular target, don't bother because it's a buch of paranoid bullshit! Second of all, "the brilliance of Ronald Ragan"? It's talk like that, that makes me hope for Bush to be assasinated, seems like no matter what kind of idiot he is, he'll be remembered as some kind of heroic wise guy, because the fascists say so. I'd just like to see him die young.

WOW, I seldom reply to comments of no value, but sir, i'll make an exception this time around. Any pure historian will tell you what a solid role Ronald Reagan played in bringing an end to the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republic.

I never said Canada was a nuclear target, rather it was likely for Canada to become an unfortunate peaceful nation, geographically wedged between 2 superpowers. If a 5000 pound lazer guided bunker buster can go array in Iraq and kill the innocent, I wouldn't wanna think how much of a chaos Canada would have been, had the cold war ice begun to melt.

Would you care to explain how American Capitalism played a huge role in bringing the Nazi's to power. Was it Capitalism or the Industrial revolution ? And was it the Americans who started that ?

You must be the only Bush hater who wishes that he was assasinated. Is it trully your wish for Dick Cheney to run the world ? Sticky sands, the world can deal with but mad-cow dung is a different ball game. For the sake of the world, you ought to pray that Bush stays in the best of health for the next 4 years, unless of course, Cheney's cholesterol decks him sooner.

[caesar]

You must be the only Bush hater who wishes that he was assasinated. Is it trully your wish for Dick Cheney to run the world ?

Who do YOU think is pulling the puppet strings on Bush now??????

However, I would not want to see him assassinated; that might make a hero or martyr of him. Some slow painful disease or a diagnose of his mental problems would suffice.

[caesar]

Ronald

Regan brilliant?????? what a joke.

Osama bin laden probably had more to do with the break up of the soviet union as he said in his last post and is heading the USA down that same self destructive path.

Osama is not my hero, far from it; but there just might be a lot of truth in his boasts.

[WageSlave]

You must be the only Bush hater who wishes that he was assasinated. Is it trully your wish for Dick Cheney to run the world ?

Who do YOU think is pulling the puppet strings on Bush now??????

However, I would not want to see him assassinated; that might make a hero or martyr of him. Some slow painful disease or a diagnose of his mental problems would suffice.

Yeah aids would be great!

[WageSlave]

I never said Canada was a nuclear target, rather it was likely for Canada to become an unfortunate peaceful nation, geographically wedged between 2 superpowers. If a 5000 pound lazer guided bunker buster can go array in Iraq and kill the innocent, I wouldn't wanna think how much of a chaos Canada would have been, had the cold war ice begun to melt.

Would you care to explain how American Capitalism played a huge role in bringing the Nazi's to power. Was it Capitalism or the Industrial revolution ? And was it the Americans who started that ?

You must be the only Bush hater who wishes that he was assasinated. Is it trully your wish for Dick Cheney to run the world ? Sticky sands, the world can deal with but mad-cow dung is a different ball game. For the sake of the world, you ought to pray that Bush stays in the best of health for the next 4 years, unless of course, Cheney's cholesterol decks him sooner.

Even the American military wouldn't be so stupid as to attack from the United States, how is possible for Canada to be hit?

The USSR didn't, just as Iran doesn't have the capability to launch missles that far, they would have been launched from Cuba.

Yes, I'm sure any fascist historian would be happy to deny anything a realist had to say, that doesn't make it so. Ronald Ragan was a actor not an activist. The USSR collapsed due to supreme corruption, it had nothing to do with Ragan.

In the early battles in the streets of Berlin between the communists and the brown shirts, the communists lost partly due to the financial superiority of the brown shirts. People such as Henry Ford were partly responsible for this money. The Bush family helped fund much of the materials that built the death camps.

[Hawk]

Yes, I'm sure any fascist historian would be happy to deny anything a realist had to say, that doesn't make it so. Ronald Ragan was a actor not an activist. The USSR collapsed due to supreme corruption, it had nothing to do with Ragan.

Yeah thats right, anything that doesn't agree with you is based on fasicsm. LoL xD You have no clue what fascism truly is do you?

In the early battles in the streets of Berlin between the communists and the brown shirts, the communists lost partly due to the financial superiority of the brown shirts. People such as Henry Ford were partly responsible for this money. The Bush family helped fund much of the materials that built the death camps.

Ok PLEASE tell me you just are terrible at sentance structure.. because I did not just see you say the Bush family helped build nazi death camps! xD rofl

[Black Dog]

Any pure historian will tell you what a solid role Ronald Reagan played in bringing an end to the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republic.

Examples?

Would you care to explain how American Capitalism played a huge role in bringing the Nazi's to power.

American companies did a booming business with the Nazis prior to (and in some cases, after) America's entry into the war (IBM, DuPont, GM, being prime examples).

[caesar]

QUOTE 

Any pure historian will tell you what a solid role Ronald Reagan played in bringing an end to the Union Of Soviet Socialist Republic.

Examples?

As far as I can see; Reagans only claim to fame on this is that he happened to be the President of the USA at the time. The USSR self destructed and the USA is following it lead.

[August1991]

American companies did a booming business with the Nazis prior to (and in some cases, after) America's entry into the war (IBM, DuPont, GM, being prime examples).

That has got to be one of the more silly canards spread about "evil corporations".

Many, many other people did "business" with the Nazis, and the American corporations listed above did "business" with many non-Nazis.

BD, the argument above is tantamount to saying that Ford Motor Company sold a car to Al Capone therefore Ford Motor Company is a gangster. Or, Richard Nixon bought shares through the New York Stock Exchange therefore the NYSE is crooked. I have heard that every US $100 bill has traces of cocaine so anyone who has ever had $100 is somehow involved in the drug trade.

I suspect that the arrival of anonymous markets several thousand years ago changed the simple religious morality of good/bad. Having never really understood markets, the Left not surprisingly sticks to that morality.

[WageSlave]

American companies did a booming business with the Nazis prior to (and in some cases, after) America's entry into the war (IBM, DuPont, GM, being prime examples).

That has got to be one of the more silly canards spread about "evil corporations".

Many, many other people did "business" with the Nazis, and the American corporations listed above did "business" with many non-Nazis.

BD, the argument above is tantamount to saying that Ford Motor Company sold a car to Al Capone therefore Ford Motor Company is a gangster. Or, Richard Nixon bought shares through the New York Stock Exchange therefore the NYSE is crooked. I have heard that every US $100 bill has traces of cocaine so anyone who has ever had $100 is somehow involved in the drug trade.

I suspect that the arrival of anonymous markets several thousand years ago changed the simple religious morality of good/bad. Having never really understood markets, the Left not surprisingly sticks to that morality.

However they will not do business with "communists". Are communists "more evil" than Nazi's?

[caesar]

BD, the argument above is tantamount to saying that Ford Motor Company sold a car to Al Capone therefore Ford Motor Company is a gangster. Or, Richard Nixon bought shares through the New York Stock Exchange therefore the NYSE is crooked. I have heard that every US $100 bill has traces of cocaine so anyone who has ever had $100 is somehow involved in the drug trade.

Your comparison is foolish. A single unimportant purpchase is much different than the knowing large scale sales of equipment that could be used for evil /war purposes by aggressive "rogue" type governments is much different that the sale or purchase of a single item. The key is in knowing and the 100 dollar bill thingy is a ridiculous comparison.

[pioneer]

look,my ancestors fought the nazis and if they can forgive and forget than anyone can!stalin was much worse than hitler and gengis khan and such!so why the preoccupation with the nazis for!

[Black Dog]

BD, the argument above is tantamount to saying that Ford Motor Company sold a car to Al Capone therefore Ford Motor Company is a gangster. Or, Richard Nixon bought shares through the New York Stock Exchange therefore the NYSE is crooked. I have heard that every US $100 bill has traces of cocaine so anyone who has ever had $100 is somehow involved in the drug trade.

Utterly fatuous.

How do you figure?So when IBM developed a computer punch card system that allowed the Nazis to efficiently keep track of death camp inmates, that's okay, 'cause they were just working with any old client? We'r etalkin about the clos eties between the upper echelons of U.S. business and the Nazi party. Henry Ford was a ardent Nazi sympathizer, gave money to the fascist cause and recieved the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle, the highest decoration that could be given to any non-German.

But in your view, hey: that's just business.

[caesar]

look,my ancestors fought the nazis and if they can forgive and forget than anyone can!stalin was much worse than hitler and gengis khan and such!so why the preoccupation with the nazis for

And just what 6 million group of prople did Stalin kill.

From your posts; if your ancestors can forgive and forget the nazi acts; they have no respect for human life and certainly do not have any respect from me or any intelligent human on earth.

[SemperVeritas]

Hi...

A couple things...

In response to IBM and the punchcard system...

It was a German-American working for IBM in the US that created the punchcard system for computing the US census, that the product was sought and sold within Germany by the German branch of IBM would be more correct in portraying the true facts of the nature. If anything all that proves is that greed for world market dominance in the computing industry overtook ethical and moral principles. And of course the hindsight ability to understand the true nature of free enterprise and the shortcomings that come with improper monitoring of corporations in the 30's. Capitalism is not without its faults, but what style of economic basis and government style is?

What is ironic to me is that through all of the finger pointing, blame and fault finding, indignant opinions for leadership of the the US and its policies, I don't see anyone pointing out the ethical shortcomings of teaching children how to hate, dictators that fill mass gravesites with their own people, slaughtering and butchering women because they are only property, enslaving women until they are worth nothing more than killing at birth, carbombing extremists, funamentalist regimes, genocidal civil wars, or the like with the same finger.

Atrocities being present everywhere in the world, caused by all types, races, nationalities, agendas, politcal, religious, and vengence seekers alike, explain how peacefulness is going to cut through the minds of those that are driven on pure hate, ignorance, fear, and indignation for anyone, anything that doesn't comply with their views.

Ancient history has proven much of the Middle East to have been nothing but a constant battle ground since before Christ was even a twinkle in God's eye, Moses ever thought of leading an Exodus, or Muhommad stopped invading other territories long enough to hear Allah tell him he was the chosen prophet of a new faith...so as far as history repeating itsself...yeah sure, over and over and over again. World peace and those that seek it by peaceful manner please tell me how you can do so and cut through thousands of years of tribal, territorial, and religious wars. Ghandi worked but that was a man who had respect of many in a nation for his religious and philosophical teachings...the man lived and taught by example and it took nearly lifetimes worth of work for him to effect a change...its not the same world it was then. Find me one person who is willing to go to the extremes on the behalf of saving a nation and its people the way Ghandi did...especially a religious leader with that kind of strength to change and cause to bring its people to make the stand against the oppresive regime. Layout for me a plan of peacefully bringing the Middle East and all the fundamental extremists, Muslim, Jewish Orthodox, and Christian fundies with differing ways of life, religious tendencies, and feelings of land and God given birthrights into peaceful compliance.

Who can say for sure they know the agenda of each and every national leader...who has the intelligence to read the intentions of any other nation and read what interests are really being served. If half of the Middle Eastern regimes, Islamic extremists groups and some of the African nations were under the same microscope as the US how wide open would the eyes of awareness for atrocity become? Blinders and tunnel vision are convenient fault finders and peacekeepers in the realm of worldly affairs when they never change their focus or direction.

So I pose this question to everyone who has an opinion how should the US be run... If you had the power of the US nation and had your nation and its people, and foreign politics, national leaders and world interests to answer to, how would you handle running the US? Who's interests do you serve first and why? Remember you have the power to affect changes but you also have to remain viable, secure and productive, answer to the scrutiny of the world views and opinions, needs, and wishes for aid in spite of weakening your ability to assure those in your own country that the cost of your involvement is worth their time going to work to pay the taxes that fund the aid, whether it be monitarily, militarily, or volunteer labor and support. Remember your under every other nations microscope...you can't even so much pee wrong for having 10 other nations presses reporting on the style at which you relieve yourself..."Does he Sit or Stand" tops the news...

Now when you go about organizing your own life how much of your intersts do you protect on a daily basis in the name of survival for your family, your friends, your neighbors, your community, your country, the world. What designates your priorital order in your personal life...does the world peace fund get a portion of your money at the end of the day?

My point being how much of your philosophy for conducting world affairs mirror your own life's and how much of it do you actually live by.

Sorry if this seems inappropriate but I'm trying to understand how the balance is weighted and why.

Em Hotep...

S.V.

Principles only mean something if you stand by them when its inconvenient.

--The Contender

[caesar]

How soon we forget. It is not many years ago when the black man was just a piece of property . Even after slavery was finally abolished in the USA; black people were still treated as non people asked to sit in the back of the bus; refused service in many establishments and trated like a stray dog. It was only forty years ago when I had a conversation with an American Airman stationed in Canada. He admitted that they would kill blackmen by hitting them with their cars and just dispose of the body like it was a stray dog. He was disgusted with his own behavior; but that was how he was raised to react in the south. He had made friends with fellow airmen who were black. My girl friend simply danced with a black man at a dance held on the base and they were ready to beat the fellow up and ostracized my friend. There was no romance; simply a dance. The USA does not, even now, really treat the black people as equals. Look what the settlers in America did to the natives; that was one of the largest genocides in history.

The USA has no right to criticize other countries and the treatment of its citizens. Most muslim countries have outlawed the worst treatment of females that you believe to be present throughout the Muslim countries.

[SemperVeritas]

Caesar...your talking about sentiments that are suffered ALL OVER the world...Hell even Africa is filled with biggotry to the african blackman. African blackmen will enslave one another to this day in tribal conflicts, if they don't kill one another first...your point has little merrit if your trying to single out the United States as such a place of inequality...that it happened in the past is a travesty, but that simply is not the way of it anymore, not with the current hatecrime bills that were passed a few years back in the southern states where the attitudes your talking of are being educated against. What makes you so sure that women in Muslim countries have it so great? Have you links to places where I can view these new found freedoms that Muslim and Islamic women enjoy...see I wasn't referring to just Muslim women. I was referring to women that suffer at the hands of religious and government extremeness. Population control in certain Asain nations is to kill infantile females...

The African-American is free in the US. They serve as Supreme Court Justices, former Secretary of State Colin Powel is Jamaican-American. Who forgets the atrocity of slavery, however lets not also look at how far and how fast its becoming less and less of an issue. With the exception of some extreme southern diehards whose unfortunate lack of education perpetuates their inbred behavior the African American in the United States can attain the ranks of some of the highest offices in the government and military. And who took over as Secretary of State in the US an African American woman...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. So if you want to bring up the past and talk about how not so long ago it was lets talk about how not so long ago it would have been that these possibilities wouldn't even have graced the newsprint. Hell there is even an entire month devoted to educating about black history in the US. Again whats your point?

[Black Dog]

What is ironic to me is that through all of the finger pointing, blame and fault finding, indignant opinions for leadership of the the US and its policies, I don't see anyone pointing out the ethical shortcomings of teaching children how to hate, dictators that fill mass gravesites with their own people, slaughtering and butchering women because they are only property, enslaving women until they are worth nothing more than killing at birth, carbombing extremists, funamentalist regimes, genocidal civil wars, or the like with the same finger.

It's funny, but I can just cast my mind back a couple of thousand years and hear the same line being used in another place....

"What is ironic to me is that through all of the finger pointing, blame and fault finding, indignant opinions for leadership of the Roman Empire and its policies, I don't see anyone pointing out the ethical shortcomings of barbarian tribes that engage in human sacrifices, cannibalism or the like with the same finger..."

For me it comes down to the simple fact that it's possible to recognize and condemn atrocious behaviour no matter its origin. So your argument would only hold water if you can catch someone who is vociferously denouncing the U.S. also defending, say Osama Bin Laden. The idea that people should be held accountable and their opinions judged based on what they are not saying is pretty self-serving and allows one to make all kinds of judgments that may not be supportable.

The United States is the most powerful country in the world. Its reach is global and, as such, it can be expected to attract a proportional share of criticism. What's more, the U.S. self-identifies so heavily with concepts of freedom and democracy that when an Abu Ghirab or a Pinochet manifest themselves, the hypocrisy becomes apparent. No one expects great things from a third world military dictatorship, but the U.S., by its own rhetoric, sets the bar higher for itself.

Basically, I don’t think getting defensive when someone draws attention to the U.S.’s shortcomings is a productive way to go. Instead of denying these realities or deflecting attention elsewhere, perhaps Americans should own up and say: “Yeah, we’re not perfect, but we need to set an example for the world to follow.” Prevaricating about the realities of 21st Century America only reinforces the negative attitudes so many have towards the United States, its government and, to some extent, its people. (Not to mention how grating the effluent of jingoism and self-aggrandizement is to outsiders.)