Fuck Your National Security State

The BBQ Pit
21

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Pardon me but did the United States legislature attempt to pass laws that were applicable within Canada? Canada is among our most trusted allies and we have a rather long undefended border which we share. If terrorist are using Canada as a conduit to enter the United States then I’d appreciate if you guys attempted to put a halt to it. If terrorist were coming through the United States into Canada I’m sure you’d want us to do something about it as well. It has nothing to do with attempting to take away soverignty.

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Did anyone order you to cooperate or is the United States asking for your help?

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I don’t think it is stale at all. I’m pretty sure that Canada is on our side. And I’d appreciate any cites you have that would indicate that we’re dictating what steps you must take.

Marc

22

Not on border security, but on investment and trade in Cuba… have you ever read the Helms-Burton law…?

23

Excuse me here, sorry to the rest of bagkitty’s fellow Canadian counterparts, this is not directed at you but her and her lame ass OP.

Look, bagkitty, then get your Air Force out of my city (Colorado Springs) and get them out of NORAD and Shriever and Peterson Air Force Bases…yes, your military is as much a part of this as my military is. Okay? Got that? Your military uses our extreme technology (aka NORAD’s defenses) as we use your areas for defense and I am sure some of your technology. I know it from my perspective because I have lived here for 28 years and had one of your higher up Air Force men take me, my family and some friends on a private tour of NORAD.

So get off this shit. It could have been easily your country or England or any other fucking country on this Earth. But don’t you for one second think that you don’t owe us anything as Canadians and we in return as well. This is not two children playing in a sandbox, this is all out war against what most countries of this Earth hold dear, freedom. Again, I stress, this isn’t a game, a board game, a card game, this is serious fucking shit. You, my dear, could and might be a part of the pawns of the war against freedoms.

If you are my nieghbor I sure as fuck don’t want you as my neighbor. Our two countries live well together. Yes I admit the US is seen as the stronger brother of Canada but both countries work hard to maintain safe soils, together. Unfortunately, Canada has some very lax laws about immigrants or those that carry Visas, so does our country but don’t you for one minute get on your throne and claim that we shouldn’t ask that Canada strengthens its policies towards foreigners. It affects us all, despite the fact we are separate countries, what happens here will affect you and vice versa.

Both the US and Canada have been somewhat immune (until 9/11) from the effects of serious terrorism. But don’t you sit back and twiddle your damn thumbs and state that Canadians are immune to this and that YOU shouldn’t have to bow down to US requests. After all, it was a US Customs agent that stopped a potential bombing of a suspect that started in Canada; he wanted to blow up an LA airport on Jan 1st 2000. I agree that both countries need to step up security procedures. It’s called being aware of your neighbor and doing what is good for the good of all, not some whiney chick that can’t see past her nose. A whiney neighbor is a nuisence to the greater of the nieghborhood and should be pushed in the back so she can wave her hand and be ignored.

But Ms bagkitty if you feel that you are so taken apart from this situation, please write your legislature and have your Air Force taken out of NORAD, Shriever and Peterson and what other bases they are in in our country along with all the US forces in your country. I am sure all would agree with you, that Canada is apparently immune to all such attacks and doesn’t need to work with one another to make our lives safe.

< my mind is ready to blow off my head…I have always thought of my fellow Canadians as friends (of which one of my best friends has a dual citizenship with Canada and the US…) >

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techchick68 Take a valium babe.

As to getting our airforce out of NORAD, no problem, my party (NDP/NPD) is committed to a withdrawal from NORAD and NATO… I have never voted, campaigned or worked for a party that wasn’t committed to disentangling from the American ‘defence’ octupus. I would also love to get your fucking radar bases and their toxic wastes out of the arctic. I would love to have your government have to ask permission before sending their military aircraft through our airspace, and would love to see your navy banned from our territorial waters. I’m working on it.

And you are suffering from a severe case of gender confusion. If you feel you must identify a poster by gender, check the profile first.

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Damn, going to have take part of that last post back, I guess the profile doesn’t mention gender.

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Okay then let me ask you this…in the face of REALITY, Canada and the US are allies. We share almost the same soils. Our cultures aren’t that far different, basically, just like your neighborhood, you share some similar values while people are different.

So, would you rather just sit by and allow your government, friends, companies, etc…divorce themselves from the US along with all nations?

That’s just what I read from your posts. You’d rather sink into your little hole and wish that everyone can take care of themselves.

Look, I am a Libertarian, but diplomatic allies in a strange situation don’t mean that I expect our friends up north, across the sea or elsewhere don’t help out when the going is tough, (we have helped out in some serious situations, Canada is different because Canada really hasn’t been threatened that I know of.) Do I expect it? Not me, but I don’t give into the fact that you sit there and claim that the US is bullying anyone, not in so many words but that’s basically what you said. I find that thinking bullshit.

A country is not unlike a nieghborhood, and I will keep bringing this up until your face is blue. If I am threatened I will ask my nieghbor for help. I don’t demand but I will remember the reaction of my neighbor. If I am being raped and I called a neighbor for help and he/she failed to respond I would be deeply pissed, sad and more than angered. If they asked for help in similar situations, I might just turn the other cheek if they turned theirs in a dire situation.

Canada and the US are like brothers, you want to tear that down for reasons I have no clue. No man is an island, no country is an island in the scheme of things. We are a world filled with a lot of things we all don’t understand. But the moment that a nieghbor came to me asking for help, I would do what I could with what I had. I am not cold and callus. I don’t thrive on being a snot.

If you think of it locally, and even if you didn’t (I would hope) really like your nieghbor, if they were in need of your help you would assist in what you can despite your differences.

It starts at home and I hope your heart isn’t that cold…it’s that thinking that scares the fuck out of me. That people wouldn’t think twice unless they were threatened themselves. I don’t wish any ill will upon you but the next time you have a minor problem like a flat tire, no money for food or someone raping you that you will recieve help that you need…not because it’s for your good but for the greater good of you and your family and the other women that might be raped by the same guy. This thinking extends beyond your own circle to the world I guess.

It’s not an I am One and I only matter kind of world, it goes way beyond that sister…think.

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techchick68: I like the neighbourhood analogy… even as a socialist I like that analogy. Problem is, my family moved next door to the biggest bully in the neighbourhood.

But I like the big brother analogy (and will refrain from going off on a tangent exploring the Orwellian implications of that image) better. Sort of like the self-absorbed big brother preparing for a date… won’t let anyone near the bathroom mirror cause of his narcissism, subject to delusions of persecution, and oblivious to the carnage he leaves for someone else to clean up. Most importantly, a big brother who lives forever in the now, seemingly without the capacity for self reflection and forgetting what he has done in the past. Your stereotypcial self-absorbed teenager.

This teenager has done good things in the past, but pouts when people forget to list all his accomplishments and heap praise on him constantly. This teenage bully has wonderful powers that allow him to forget his tormenting of the other neighbourhood children, his petty crimes and misdemeanours, his tendency to steal things from the other children. Yes, I know this big brother type well – charitably he is the narcissistic sports hero with a mean streak, sometimes he is just the nasty kid in the gang.

I asked my parents if we could move, but apparently our home isn’t the mobile kind, and neighbourhood ordinances prohibit us from building a concrete wall along the property line.

Even little children learn that the beating they get is worthwhile when it proves that the person they tell “you aren’t the boss of me” is demonstrating their inability to act like an adult.

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Canadians…

I hate stereotypes. I know many (but not all) Canadians are very proud - proud of their country, proud of their autonomy - as well they should be. And some (like bagkitty) seem to have an enormous chip on their shoulder concerning America. I know why - we all do.

But most Canadians are kind, thoughtful, hard working, open-minded, sincere - good people, I think. Like most Americans.

Both countries are full of complex peoples, wonderful and difficult histories, beautiful and diverse geography. There are certainly positive and negative aspects to both countries; there are extreme citizens and evil-doers and dark days behind as well as ahead. And there are, without a doubt, valid criticisms of many, many parts of us all.

But when you walk around with such a huge and obvious chip on your shoulder, it makes it hard to see or hear anything else. So fire away at America - and fire away at Canada. It’s one of the rights we’ve all earned. But do so (like some of the other posters on this thread) with a clear purpose and empty luggage. Otherwise you come across as the worst of your (or our) citizens, despite your good intentions.

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Y’know, this is all rather silly when you consider that about half of all border posts between the great white north and the states are guarded by nothing more than an orange cone as soon as it gets dark.

Our problems, and our perceived problems, have nothing at all to do with laws right now.

They have everything to do with the enforcement of those laws.

So the US is asking us to do something. Big fucking deal. They’ve always asked (and if you want to blame someone, blame Diefenbaker for acceding to demands faster than a $3 dollar whore).

If you want to rant about something, rant about the outrageous tariff being dumped on Canadian softwood lumber exported to the states. Especially when you consider that it violates NAFTA, the people who passed the tariff know it violates NAFTA, and that the three other times it’s been done in the past 20 years the US has lost its case in court. Tens of thousands of people in BC have lost their jobs since the first week of August because of this punitive tariff. That’s worth getting angry about.

But don’t go getting pissed about a stupid political move of the same kind that happens every fucking day between every fucking nation in the world.

US Dopers, take bagkitty with a grain of salt… or kitty litter [sub]sorry ;)[/sub]. I’ve never met him, but I can see by his profile that he’s a card-carrying NDPer living in Calgary. That’s like a commune-living vegan pinko gun-control african american hippie transvestite airdropped into a joint NRA-KKK-Board of Commerce meeting happening in the local butcher’s shop.

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At last, I have found someone who understands me!!! Thanks Barbarian… and I do so love getting involved in pissing contests with the Yanks, they do, after all, live downstream from me BWAAAAHAAAAHAAAA

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Baaaawwwaaaa, thanks for clearing that up for us, Barbarian. Good definition. Got it straight now. Definitely need to send bagkitty to coventry. I must admit, the bile and hate pouring from him(?) should have made it evident. My bad.

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Bile and hate? Yeah right. “Waiter, we need more valium over here, and make ultress’ an elephant sized dose”.

Why is it when someone challenges the bully and tells them to piss off and stop acting like they rule the universe, they are filled with bile and hate?

I guess I haven’t learned my proper place yet. I will get back to practicing my hewing of wood and drawing of water.

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You mean like the guys who flew the planes into the buildings down here?

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Ukulele Ike: That would definitely be a case of being filled with hate and bile. And I do resent the inference that telling someone to piss off and stop acting like they rule the universe is in anyway an equivalent. I think the worst I have suggested is building a large concrete wall along the border.

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Sorry, I don’t mean to imply that you’re the equivalent of the terrorists.

It’s just that, when I read your previous post, I got a mental image of those guys celebrating on September 11, clinking their mugs of Ovaltine and saying, “We sure challenged the bully! We let them know that they should piss off and stop acting like they rule the universe!”

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Ukulele Ike as I have said in several posts, the events of 11 September were an obscenity, twisted, perverted… take your pick. The whole basis for my posting the thread was that I was pissed off at the paternalism of the U.S. government towards my own. I opted to do it in the pit rather than Great Debates because I didn’t want to offend the sensibilities of my fellow posters. Since things are a little looser here, I thought it the appropriate place – cause I expected to get flamed and was ready to flame in response. So, I hope there are no permanent hard feelings… if there are, I suggest valium (better living through pharmaceuticals is one of my leit motifs).

37

And this was exactly what I was worried about. Nobody can be angry, suspicious, resentful, and/or dubious of US foreign policy and express those feelings in print right now without being compared to the terrorists or accused of being in sympathy with them (Uke, really!) This is exactly what I feared in the way of a chilling effect on world discourse.

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Fer chrissake, matt, I’m not trying to chill your fucking discourse. But hollering “Let’s challenge the bully!” three weeks after someone did just that – violently – (and I’m terribly fucking sorry, but I have a mass grave of five thousand that I can see from my fucking ROOFTOP here) seems tasteless, as well as provocative.

bagk, what IS it with you and Valium? So far you’ve prescribed it to everyone in this thread. Do you own shares in a pharmaceutical company?

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In honor of my grandfather (who died 18 years ago, is originally from Ottawa, and had very strong opinion), I’m going to include one of his favorite sayings from the 50s:

“Goddamn Diefenbaker!”

/hijack

Anyway, I think that bagkitty is more upset by the way that we asked Canada to do this. It comes too close to a threat, and Canada hasn’t done anything wrong, and therefore does not deserve such treatment.

Being attacked is absolutely no reason to snap at your allies (unless your allies abetted the attack, which Canada didn’t…)

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I think it’s really more a matter of bagkitty’s perception of the request. It’s clear that bagkitty sees the US as a bully, so any request by the bully, no matter how reasonable that request might seem to the rest of us, is going to be perceived by bagkitty as an example of more bullying.

Since Bagkitty has already concluded that the US is a bully and has demonstrate total stupidity by trying to remove Canada’s early warning system, we should be grateful for the time we will save having learned that debating with actual cat litter would produce better results.