:em01:
You’re hilarious Aaron.. ever think of doing a comedy routine on the side when you’re not busy spouting of Conservative Kool-Aid or attacking those who think conservatism is a bad and wrong philosophy? You’d do well with the large use of hyperbole that comes from you.
I’d prefer Canada to be interdependent and independent as possible, thanks very much. It has nothing to do with admiring America or hating them. Harris and Manning and the Fraser Institute would have us become nothing but a virtual colony of the US - and eventually probably the 51st state.
Sorry.. but I don’t buy into that. It’s time we became less dependent on the US, not more.
You show your idiotic bias when you ask, “Why do Conservatives hate Canada.”
Such a childish comment. Oh yeah, we don’t agree with everything the Left spouts so we must hate our country.
Keep up the deep thinking, you will grow as an individual. Someday you may even reach the thinking level of a teen-ager.
I second the call for the charge of treason. Anyone who pushes to give up the nations sovereignty to another country is guilty of treason in my book.
Also, why would we want to tie ourselves so tightly to a country who has a staggering debt load and whose dollar and economy is about to take a giant dive is beyond me. I recently read that Canada is doing more and more trading business with Europe these days. That is good news. It would make more sense for Canada to join the European Union than with the USA, since Europe is doing well and our values are more in common with theirs than the U.S.
But, I want to keep my Canada a separate country thank you. The true north strong and free.
Hey Paul:
Maybe someday you and some of your conservative brethren will get a sense of humour (and maybe a sense of irony.. all we ever heard from conservatives down south was “Why does (insert whoever) hate America?” The title was just a play on words from that).
I’d make a snarkier comment, but you might delete my comments and ban me from your site again :p
Maybe you prefer Canada to be more “independent”, if by “dependent” you imply we’d have more economic integration and trade with the United States. Fine. That’s your opinion. But having the opposite view doesn’t make one disloyal or traitorous.
We partisans might take shots at each other over our policy differences, but only Liberals press the “traitor, unCanadian” button whenever there’s a disagreement. Newflash for you: merely disagreeing with the status quo does not make one a traitor (or an extremist, for that matter)
Funny thing is.. the whole blog entry was dripping with snark… and you cons. folks missed it completely. I figured that this was the reaction I’d get however… not that it stopped me from posting how I did.
Aaron claimed:
[quote comment="4043"]
Maybe you prefer Canada to be more “independent”, if by “dependent” you imply we’d have more economic integration and trade with the United States. Fine. That’s your opinion. But having the opposite view doesn’t make one disloyal or traitorous.
We partisans might take shots at each other over our policy differences, but only Liberals press the “traitor, unCanadian” button whenever there’s a disagreement. Newflash for you: merely disagreeing with the status quo does not make one a traitor (or an extremist, for that matter)[/quote]
Well Aaron, I hope you tell Harper and the Conservatives that piece of good advice.. since all I’ve heard the last several months be it over the sunset clauses in the anti-terrorist legislation or the Afghanistan debacle is about how the Liberals (or the opposition for that matter ) were “supporting the terrorists” or “supporting the Taliban” and other such utter nonsense.
That’s about he equivalent of an “unCanadian” charge as one can get, spouting that tripe.. but I didnt see too many Conservatives or conservative supporters or Blogging Tories reprimanding Harper. They were cheering him on.
Now I come on with a snarky title and comment about Harris and Manning, and suddenly its “only Liberals who pull out the UnCanadian card when we disagree”.. :em68:
Spare me the outrage.
The queen (Great Bitain) in our Constitution should stop them. Harper should be under treason for the thought.
Things you learn the hard way:
Sarcasm and the Internet do not work.
I have had many a misunderstanding between me and friends and particular text messages.
Suffice to say, the result is not pretty unless blatantly obvious.
See: Andrew Coyne
http://andrewcoyne.com/2006/12/santa-incentive.php
That being said, after briefly browsing through some of the Canada-US section of the document, I fail to see how this differs greatly from tendencies seen in the European Union. Facilitating integration for the sake of easing trade between countries and removing restriction or irritants for tourists and travel between countries, yet still keeping all that is “Canadian” in Canada.
However, some passages in the document are in fact full of tripe and reflect rather poorly on Canada.
“Canada’s influence with the rest of the world thus derives directly from our ability to work with the United States and is diminished to the precise degree that we stand off.”
although Canada’s ability to work with the United States is important, it is not the be all, end all of our influence in the world.
DanL
One difference in the Eu was size and balance.
While I still think the little guy often gets screwed in the Eu, having several large powerfull countries that can balance each other off makes a big difference we won’t enjoy.
Politically and economically France and Germany have many differences but they balance each other from gaining dominance. Other large powers like UK, Italy make the game more dynamic and compromise rather than dominance is often the only solution. Likewise the small countries can sometimes find common ground to form a policy bloc.
Also until the recent influx of eastern bloc countries(which is causing them big grief)all Eu countries were starting at a relatively high standards for labour laws, health, environment. When they did have issues they generally gravitated towards everyone moving towards the highest standards not the lower or median.
Canada, Mexico U.S. would be a very different animal. Combined Mex/Can cannot balance the power of the U.S. The U.S. does not want to improve standards but lower them to the median or worse the lowest common denominator in order to make industry happy.
In the end they want our’s and Mexicos resources, our good credit to bouy a currency and Mexico’s cheap labour to drive down domestic cost.
The Eu has rules about deficits and debts of members countries, if the U.S. and Probably Mexico tried to join them they would not qualify as they would be a burden on the currency and the economic health of the union. Mexico gets 40% of it’s gov revenue from the oil fields which are shrinking by 8% a year, Revenue has not shrunk yet because of rising prices but it’s rate of shrinkage it will run out of surplus to export in 5-7 years.
It would not be rational or healthy to join a union with two countries sick and disfunctional as these two.
I don’t understand why I am somehow responsible for everything written by anyone on the Blogging Tories. I’m sure you don’t agree with the opinions of ever single progressive blogger, either.
You know Scott, this isn’t Question Period. You don’t have to make everything partisan. You don’t have to be a jerk all the time just for the hell of it. Sometimes people who have different opinions than you just want to discuss stuff. Hard to believe, but true.
Aaron: you ARE the one who made the claim that only Liberals pull out the “un-Canadian” charge over disagreement on positions
I just quoted back to you what Harper and the conservatives have been saying - which I’m sure you didn’t miss in the news reports, unless you werent watching for the past several months - which contradicted that very claim of yours , and even faced with that, even now you can’t admit you’re wrong.
And I’m supposedly drinking the Kool-Aid? Looks to me you’re drinking a fair bit yourself.
So your complaint is that Tories do it too, rather than Liberals don’t do it?
I guess what many Tories find so amusing is that folks like yourself get outraged when Harper plays the unCanadian card (which incidentally I believe he only ever does in the context of the Afghanistan mission, nothing else), when you’re the ones who taught Harper et al what an effective weapon it can be.
But the basic point is: nobody should be playing that card. So yes, it’s bad when we do it. But it’s even more nauseating to hear Liberals whine about it when they are clearly the all-time masters of the game.
Trackback and pingback from other blogger
“Maybe it’s just me being shrill.. but I almost think we should charge these guys with treason for advocating such nonsense. Charging them with stupidity would probably be sufficient, however.”
Yeah, okay.
You could summed all this up by saying “anyone who admires anything about America that I don’t like is a traitor”