By the by, grien, thank you for calling me on my over-zealousness.
Frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is aboot.
Ok lets move the regional debate over here .
Lets air the dirty laundry shall we?
Jimbo and Raygun, thank you very much for fighting my ignorance.
Fear not - the Liberals could go from power to oblivion as quickly as the Conservatives did, couldn’t they?
Theoretically, it is possible, but unlikely. as DPJ mentioned, the conservatives were hurt and are still hurting by the right wing split. It’s pretty hard to have a central split, especially with the NDP attempting to move further left.
My problems with the Liberals is not so much their party (though they deserve a shakeup to keep them from being so complacent) as Chretien. There are some good potential leaders in the Liberals that I’d consider voting for; the former Finance minister is generally considered the front runner to take over from Chretien in 2004 and could probably win a ton of seats in the West. I’m not convinced they’ll go with him though; he’s 66 (or thereabouts) and is a major political rival of Chretien. It’s commonly believed that Chretien stuck around this long to attempt to sink his chances of succeeding him.
Hey, Matt! The Dumb-as-a-Post has reprinted (an edited version of) Jonah’s article, which has considerably more detail than the preview at NRO:
Wouldn’t this be considered treason in some countries?
Some real gems:
“Absurd socialist policies…” Like health care? (I doubt he knows about the Wheat Pool.)
Yeah, I guess it is pretty absurd to complain about respected & valued Canadian citizens being “disappeared.”
It’s hard not to smile at the last sentence of the article, though:
I love Big Brother.
Can you imagine someone saying “A little invasion is what the United States needs”?
Not a Canadian, no. Nor can I imagine people wanting a little invasion, but a huge, massive invasion, yeah, I can imagine a lot of folks saying that. Specifically ones on the fringe edge of society, terrorists, Neo-Nazi nutbags, and other whackos. Yep, I can picture them saying that America needs to be invaded, no problem.
Guys, it’s a Swiftian proposal. Jonah is a bit of a satirist. He’s making a point with exaggeration and humor.
The truth is, a lot of the stuff he says is dead on. Canadians DO have a big inferiority complex when it comes to the U.S. Canada HAS abrogated its responsibilities to provide for defense. The Chretien government has gutted the military, cynically knowing that the U.S. is forced to defend us anyway.
But the fact of realpolitik is, if you allow yourself to become the protectorate of someone else, you lose a lot of political capital. If no one needs Canada, no one will listen to Canada.
If we had a stronger military and a little more of a pro-US stance, that might give us some negotiating clout when it comes to things like softwood lumber disputes. If the U.S. needed to seek our help, or even if it just valued our help, then we would be in a position to negotiate for things that are important to us.
Instead, we let our military become a shadow of its former self, then our PM gets up on his high horse and tries to lecture the people who are footing the bills. And then Canadians wonder why we have lost our influence in the world (and a Canadian influence is a very, very valuable thing for the world).
Canada was once in a position to take leadership roles in things like peacekeeping. Canada served with distinction in the Gulf war. And the Canadian soldiers are still excellent - the Americans tried to pin bronze stars on our snipers in Afghanistan. Our idiotic government refused - no doubt some liberal nincompoop thinks that it’s unseemly for soldiers to get medals for killing people.
It makes me furious to think that the uniquely Canadian perspective on things is losing its voice due to the disgusting policies of our government.
Swift’s satire was clever and he used an opposite stance to point out a foible (A modest proposal is a prime example). His proposal is to invade Canada because Canada needs a bitch slapping to get in gear. He may not mean a litteral invasion but a berating … hardly satire. This article is as ignorant as is its point. It is far from clever.
Yes, Our Military needs fixing and funding but not to the levels the US demands. Who will our military defend us from? Our only neighbour capabale of attacking us is The US and despite any pie in the sky dreams even with ever available citizen serving we couldn’t last against that Army. So who do we need the army for?
The Terrorists?
Terrorists don’t attack as a standing army, a properly funded and trained intelligence agency and national police force (The RCMP) would do the job better than the military. Stomping around the globe trying to Smash the terrorists won’t work either because they tend to prepare strikes from within friendly nations. Since the success in Afghanistan has terrorist acts stopped? Is Al Queda gone?
So let me undersatnd this one. If we agree in whole with the US they won’t throw up protectionist tarriffs against our lumber industry? You are joking right?
The tarriffs aren’t a punishment for our actions. What they are designed to protect their weaker industry from ours because we are cheaper. They claim we are unfairly subsidising our softwood industry which is a joke. Please don’t think for a second this has any higher purpose that can be dropped if we comply with another unrelated political issue.
How can being a Yes man give us any clout? Are we not allowed to have a desenting voice at all or should we shut up and hope to get table scraps?
Absolute rubbish!
Especially if they’re all like that guy on Due South. 
No, the US will only take Canada seriously if Canada does or has something that Americans desperately need, and at the moment I’m not sure what that is. Or maybe Canada just needs a better propaganda machine in the US. Failing that, the least Canada can do is for the Blue Jays to win the World Series a few more times – that’ll show America who’s boss.
You’re joking, right? Are you saying The Canadian Forces are only needed to fight battles/wars if it is on our own turf? To protect us from our neighbors? Or, are you saying that a countrie should only have a military if they are capable of defeating the largest, baddest Army in the world?
Is it warm in your cave?
countrie=country
The text originally was going to read countries… good thing I changed it. :rolleyes: