Strong and Free

[caroljane]

Late Canada Day, and early 4th of July greetings to our dear friends and neighbours, the Southern Provinces.

Canada is now 145 years young. In a way we are at the same point of national prosperity, and patriotic optimism, that you in the USA were in 1921...

Uh-oh.

[BaalChatzaf]

I have often wondered if the American Revolution was really necessary. The Canadians have a pretty good country and they are free. They never had a Revolution nor a Civil War and they did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals at least to the extent that the Unitedstateseans did. Nor did they have slavery.

It seems that have everything that we aspired to without nearly the pain and cost.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[jts]

I have often wondered if the American Revolution was really necessary. The Canadians have a pretty good country and they are free. They never had a Revolution nor a Civil War and they did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals at least to the extent that the Unitedstateseans did. Nor did they have slavery.

It seems that have everything that we aspired to without nearly the pain and cost.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I'm not sure about the "did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals" part.

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

I'm not sure about the "free" part. Someone described Canada as a socialist hell hole. Is that true?

[Brant Gaede]

I have often wondered if the American Revolution was really necessary. The Canadians have a pretty good country and they are free. They never had a Revolution nor a Civil War and they did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals at least to the extent that the Unitedstateseans did. Nor did they have slavery.

It seems that have everything that we aspired to without nearly the pain and cost.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I'm not sure about the "did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals" part.

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

I'm not sure about the "free" part. Someone described Canada as a socialist hell hole. Is that true?

Didn't Canada benefit from slavery in the U.S. the way Great Britain did?

--Brant

[william.scherk]

Canada is now 145 years young. In a way we are at the same point of national prosperity, and patriotic optimism, that you in the USA were in 1921...

Uh-oh.

I am stumped. I refused to Google and just sat there and tried to think it out, and it didn't work. I am not going to peek, either. So, can you give us a historical sketch/parallel without making anyone unduly uncomfortable?

I have often wondered if the American Revolution was really necessary.   The Canadians have a pretty good country and they are free.  They never had a Revolution nor a Civil War and they did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals at least to the extent that the Unitedstateseans did.  Nor did they have slavery.  

It seems that have everything that we aspired to without nearly the pain and cost.

Canada knew slavery, Ba'al, but as part of Empire abolished it earlier than America. We have the kinds of freedoms enumerated in lists of economic and social liberties, ease of business, rule of law, blah blah blah, a lot like America, cousinly.

We are in Canada an extension of American values, too. Our attitude to immigration is made possible by the buffer of America itself. Our multiracial society in construction would be different if our southern border were the Rio Grande. We took heart at American cries for social liberties, for social reconciliation, for integration, for a Great Society. We were constantly forced to deal with The Other (if in Quebec, the English, if in the rest of Canada, the French).

We had a Trudeau, Ba'al who wrote laws for 17 years total, and who stick-handled the first 'native' constitution. We were many years behind you in so many ways until the mid-sixties of the last century. Now we are a first-rank industrial nation, at the pinnacle of the riches of the earth, material and cultural. Our concept of justice is very much informed by American ideals, but because we could not vanquish The Other, we have only slowly built unity and national purpose. Our revolutions were political and social, not military. 1960 in Quebec was the start of modern history in Canada, the building of the nation was to the blueprints drafted by 1967.

I'm not sure about the "free" part (Canada). Someone described Canada as a socialist hell hole. Is that true?

I live in Vancouver, one of the greatest hellholes on earth, socialist to its fanny. You live in, I believe, Edmonton, only marginally less socialist than Finland. So, shouldn't you tell us something about life in your version of said hellhole, Jerry?  

Didn't Canada benefit from slavery in the U.S. the way Great Britain did?

Look it up, report back, please.

Don't get me wrong, I think of Americans as close cousins. Our societies are so very similar, and yet distinct.  If you haven't been to both places, it can be hard to grasp. Your own inter-state differences give a clue  of what contrasts our 'states' can contain.

Our distinct lack of crazed belligerence over socialized health care delivered by the provinces is something you might have to get used to, though, Brant (Jerry notwithstanding. I find it quite curious that Jerry rants about the USA but never tells us how awful it is in the hellhole of Alberta). That fight was done by 1965 up here.

Whatever hideous past we have lived through, we generally really do believe our own bullshit** in a way that the USA no longer does. We have no horrible and persistent right-left cleavage or massive racialized underclass. We are dull in that way.  We are glad to be your ally, but happy enough to have a border between us and our systems.

___

** by our own bullshit I mean the partially-true confections of history and propaganda that make up varied National Myths. I think we Canadians have incorporated USA values into our myths, the historical New World individual freedoms championed latterly by Trudeau. We are a reflection, maybe, a refinement of the historical demands of North America. Having never slipped out from under the Crown, we have yet made it a mere symbol of state. Although much blood was shed to establish that crown over Canada, we stopped doing that after the conquest of the French.  And we never raised enough of an  army until 1914 to be a great nasty (independent) power. We never got to sit on another nation's face in quite the same way America got to sit on the faces of  nations and peoples. Because we shelter with you, we have warred alongside you. We have warred with you and will be warriors alongside you again, but we choose when and where.  This gives Canada its enduring lustre to the unfree, abused, and stateless of the  world.  Canada is every human being's second home, its refuge.

From your proud (north) American cousin, ally and distinctly different friend in the Hellhole. I love your country and the ideals it represents to me and my people. Soldier on under your burdens. Be yon beacon to the world.  And may you show unity and purpose on your birthday!  Today you stand astride the world.

Edited July 4, 2012 by william.scherk

[BaalChatzaf]

I have often wondered if the American Revolution was really necessary. The Canadians have a pretty good country and they are free. They never had a Revolution nor a Civil War and they did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals at least to the extent that the Unitedstateseans did. Nor did they have slavery.

It seems that have everything that we aspired to without nearly the pain and cost.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I'm not sure about the "did not commit near genocide against the aboriginals" part.

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

I'm not sure about the "free" part. Someone described Canada as a socialist hell hole. Is that true?

As much as is the U.S. a socialist hell hole.

And we are much less straightforward about it too.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[9thdoctor]

Canada is now 145 years young. In a way we are at the same point of national prosperity, and patriotic optimism, that you in the USA were in 1921...

Uh-oh.

Yeah, 1921, ok, but do you have prohibition?

[Brant Gaede]

Canada is now 145 years young. In a way we are at the same point of national prosperity, and patriotic optimism, that you in the USA were in 1921...

Uh-oh.

Yeah, 1921, ok, but do you have prohibition?

And no penicillin for your clap?

--Brant

laptop, laptop--who has a laptop?

[william.scherk]

I should add a link to a parallel thread started by Michael Marotta, who asked the question, "Canada, Puerto Rico, Foreign or American."

[caroljane]

Brant, not me, I don't have a laptop now. It went to Hospice Care at Andy's (he says he has a friend who maybe can fix it, ha)/. Good news is this month I amj working double hours so should be able to earn a new/newer old one in a couple weeks.

Bill, dear heart, I only subtracted 1967 from 20012 and added 145 to 1776. No actual thought processes were involved. But I guess I do have a sort of theory about the growth and mqturation of groups (I see Islam as an adolescent religion for instance).

Baal I don't know about the penicillin but I think a Canadian had already found the insulin treatment for diabetes, which was quite Respectable to have.

My library net time is constrained by the mass of collective Canadian intellectual curiosity here so I will go check out the latest new posts and say a la prochaine.

Jts is a Canadian??????!!!!

[Selene]

Yep and we will not consider a trade! You are stuck with him.

[BaalChatzaf]

Unitedstateseans : Canadians == chimps : bonobos.

Ba'al Chatzaf