There’s no reason for them to invade us even if we stop selling them oil.
And what’s this “we” business? Speak for yourself. I’ve never been worried about people from the east or the south stealing our resources.
The solution for people who are concerned about being invaded and conquered is to save the would-be conquerers the trouble by emigrating? Or, if there’s concern on a larger scale, to cede their sovereignty?
Really?
I don’t think there is any reason, either. I’m not the one who is fearful of it happening, if you hadn’t noticed.
Who attempted to plunder Alberta’a resources in the past? It certainly wasn’t the US. That would be who? Yep, the rest of Canada guided by PET himself (a great eastern hero if there ever was one), that’s who. Or are you to young to remember the NEP?
NEP
Well, would be conquerers would have nothing to conquer because they’d be conquering themselves, wouldn’t they? It would be kind of like the US invading Alaska. What would be the point?
What sovereignty? A line on a map is redrawn and my taxes would go to a place further south than they do now. Big deal. Maybe we’d all be better off because of it and maybe the US would be better off because of our liberal leanings. Everyone wins.
I didn’t say you were fearful of it. You seem to think the U.S. will have a reason to invade us should we stop selling them oil. What reason is this?
I’m old enough to be over it a quarter-century after the fact and to realize the responsible parties aren’t in power any more. They haven’t been for some time.
I’m not going to bother attempting to convince you the NEP was a good thing. Your opinion is your own. Just cool it with the “we” business.
So you are indeed saying the best way to avoid having one’s sovereignty forcibly violated is to give it up voluntarily? This makes no sense. The reason one opposes having it removed is because one doesn’t want to give it up in the first place.
A line on a map isn’t the only thing separating Canada and the United States. I’m sure you know this.
There was no backlash at all from Canada’s decision not to support the U.S. in Iraq? Good. Glad to hear it.
What could possibly have given you the idea that my feelings were hurt by either the supposed backlash or the lack of caring about Canada by most citizens of the U.S.? Monkey With a Gun said that the U.S. respects Canada; I have doubts about how true that is. That doesn’t mean that my feelings are hurt one way or the other.
Bruce_Daddy, please don’t think that French-Canadian speech is indicative of Canadian speech in TROC (The Rest Of Canada). We don’t have accents as obvious as what you’ve got going on in the States there, but French-Canadians definitely have their own distinctive accent.
According to you, it wasn’t “supposed,” it was assumed fact. And what is whining about a “lack of respect” if not betraying hurt feelings? Here’s your own words:
Your claim of “Backlash”:
[QUOTE]
Actually, in light of the backlash from Canada’s sovereign decision to stay out of Iraq when the U.S. decided to have a military action there, I don’t really believe that the U.S. respects Canada.
And another “they don’t respect us!” claim:
Boo hoo.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
According to you, it wasn’t “supposed,” it was assumed fact. And what is whining about a “lack of respect” if not betraying hurt feelings? Here’s your own words:
Your claim of “Backlash”:
I called it “supposed” backlash because you said there wasn’t any, and I don’t care anywhere near enough to argue the point.
I am having a problem seeing where disagreeing with someone regarding an opinion is “whining” and “hurt feelings.” I don’t completely agree that the U.S. respects Canada; I don’t particularly care, though. It does not affect my day-to-day life in any way.
Well, unless he was from Newfoundland – Newfoundland English is considered a completely separate lect from Canadian English. “Lard t’underin Jaysus!”
Although this is in The Pit, I will spare you the invective that your post inspired in me for the sake of a mostly calm and rational discussion. But the two paragraphs I quoted above seem to be awfully contradictory to me.
Exactly what was it that the U.S. did before 9/11 that you compare to a kid trying drugs and hiding it from his parents, then getting hurt as a result of his own actions? Hopefully I’m reading you wrong, but it sure sounds to me like you’re saying that the U.S. deserved 9/11.
In your view, what was it that Canada did differently from the U.S. before 9/11 that spared our Canadian friend on the same playground from getting a bloody nose of his own? What drugs was the little American kid doing behind his parent’s back that the little Canadian kid didn’t also do?
I really hope this was just a bad analogy, but if not, do you mind explaining it to me? Because it sure sounds to me like the little Canadian kid, jealous of his best friend’s popularity, is now pointing at his bloody nose and laughing at him.
(I won’t make anymore bad analogies, if you won’t)
The Ambassador and the Foreign Minister had a frank and open exchange of views in their meeting today. The Ambassador required only three stiches; the Foreign Minister was released from hospital after treatment for a slight torn mustache.
If no blood had been drawn, it would have been a “blunt” exchange. If it had been only curses and gesticulations, it would have been “frank and cordial”. Always gotta leave yourself a way to back down without undue embarrassment, and leave the other guy one, too.
Thanks.
I want to make it clear that I wasn’t trying to articulate a rational position about US foreign policy, or what not. I was hoping, as best as possible, to give E-Sabbath a reading of how I (and to a limited extent, some of the people in Canada) might feel. See the disclaimer I added to my first response to E-Sabbath. I’m talking here about stuff like “feeling a bond” or “apprehension” and such. My rational analysis of the situation can be very different. Similarly: I can think my cousin deserves to be invited for Thanksgiving dinner, but I can still feel a little threatened by his habit of standing way too close to me when we’re talking. It’s this latter sort of thing that I was trying to express here, and that I believed E-Sabbath was looking for.
I wasn’t going for facts. I like it when I can make decisions based on facts, but those back-of-the-brain emotions are built mostly out of impression, stereotype, and who knows what. Asking my straight friends how they feel about gay sex, an honest answer might be “Eww, wolfstu, it kinda freaks me out”. Asking them what they think about it, though, I might get “Yeah, I get that gay people like it, so I can’t see why they shouldn’t.” Or I might get different answers to both. I figured E-Sabbath was asking more for the former sort of assessment, because of the way the question was posed:
I could have been wrong, but that’s how I tried to answer it.
What do I think about 9/11? In short, that it was a shocking, inexcusable and awful thing to have been done, no matter by who or to who. There’s no question of the United States ‘deserving’ terrorist attacks.
To further explain how I feel:
Appropriate or not, my reptilian impression of the Canadian government is that it generally lacks great vision, is slow to take action, but generally passes good laws, though sometimes embezzles and wastes a lot of money in the process. Our actions in the world involve sending bureaucrats and doctors to places, and not having a miltary or a secret service capable of much that would piss people off, even if we wanted to. Right or no, I’m generally confident that the elections are properly carried out.
As a kid, I thought pretty much the same of the US government. But things like the spectacle of the 2000 election, and the impression that the military or secret service has/had a hand in inciting rebellions or arming militia groups in Central America or Afghanistan or so on started to make me wonder about that. That’s the “good kid playing getting in with the drug crowd” in the analogy. Did any of that have anything to do with the Middle-Eastern fanatical group who decided to fly planes into buildings? Beats me. Did the people in those buildings deserve to die, or the US as a nation deserve the attacks? Hell no. But hearing the US has been up to no good made me deep down trust it less, rightly or wrongly. My shiny happy feeling about America is a little tarnished. To tell E-Sabbath that was an attempt at honesty - not an indictment that “The US is evil”, or anything else. I think there’s a lot of people who don’t trust the US as much as they used to, whether that should be the case or not. Deep down, I’m one of those people, and I’m trying to explain how that came about.
It’s like… loving your parents even if you disagree with them, or Alsatians resenting the Germans even though no living German invaded thier hometown in the Franco-Prussian war, or would want to today. Those feelings, those impressions, can linger way behind reason. I’m just trying to describe the feeling. If I’m rambling, it’s because I really want to be understood… my habit of demonstrating by analogy has in the past caused people to take offence where I meant none, or to think I meant something other than I did. 
Back at the rational level, I know one should always doubt one’s government, and I know that my impression of the US counts for squat - it’s the facts that matter. But if E-Sabbath wants to know if I have a “vague worry”… well, maybe.
Back to the (probably poor) analogy. I’ve told you what I thought of 9/11, but how did I feel about it when it happened? Well:
If, like in my home town, the drug trade is associated with gangs, all one has to do is have some innocent dealings with a member of one gang that another gang disapproves of or feels were an invasion of turf or whatever. That might just be enough for a sufficiently crazy rival gang to pay one an unpleasant visit. Al-qaida’s violent, poorly-explained actions seemed to me analogous to getting jumped on the way home by thugs you’d never met. Because those thugs were pissed off because they thought you were involved with a rival gang, even though you really weren’t.
Oh, no, no. The Canadian kid gave his friend some ice for his nose, remember? We care and even helped you try to resolve the situation (airspace co-operation on 9/11/2001, ships and soldiers for Afghanistan).
I really hope I’ve better explained why I posted what I did, and I hope I’ve conveyed that I don’t think the USA deserved to be attacked, or caused the attacks. Or even that the United States is a “bad guy”. Just that my former image of the American government doing only good in the world isn’t as secure as it was when I was a kid.
(I’ve reread this a bunch of times now… I think it’s okay. Actually, probably longer and more rambly than needed, but I don’t know what to take out.)
No, I don’t think that they would ever have a reason to invade us. Wolfstu has that worry, not me.
Actually they are still in power and have the same thought processes. I haven’t seen any effort on their part to pay us back for the money they stole.
Anyone who gets from my posts that I’m worried about the US invading Canada isn’t going to be able to convince anyone that the NEP was good for Alberta.
One has to ask oneself why they want to avoid it in the first place. Death camps in Montana perhaps? Old people being made into Soylent Green? Dunno, why don’t you tell me why you’d want to keep sovereignty from people who are so similar to us?
Well, we are to the North of them, so yeah, that is a difference.
Since you think borders aren’t terribly important, I propose Alberta be immediately absorbed into the Province of Ontario, and dubbed “Ontario West.” You okay with that? It’ll be a long, long drive for you to see your provincial capital, but I think trilliums are nicer than wild roses. Whaddya say?
No no no. If anyone’s absorbing Alberta, it’s gonna be us. Half of us already live in Calgary anyways.
Seeing that Ontario can screw us anytime they want (NEP, et al.), why would this be required?
Well, shouldn’t we be absorbing Nfld then, or Saskatchewan?
You said they’d have no reason to invade us as long as we sell them oil. Would they have a reason if we stopped? I didn’t ask if you were worried about being invaded, I asked if you think they’d have a reason to invade us should we stop selling them oil.
Not Parties, parties. As in people. Trudeau’s dead now, you can stop opposing him.
I don’t think you’re worried about it, I asked a simple question: do you think that the U.S. would have reason to invade Canada if we stopped selling them oil? Saying they’d have no reason to invade as long as we sold them oil seems to imply they would have a reason if we stopped.
I didn’t say I thought the NEP was good for Alberta, I said I’m not going to bother to try to change your mind. I couldn’t care less about the NEP, it’s ancient history to me. I was worried about whether or not the next episode of Buck Rogers would be a repeat or not at the time. Arguing about the NEP is like arguing whether or not to give women the vote as far as I’m concerned. I posted in order to put right this “we” business. You seem to subscribe to the Eastern-Creep-And-Bum school of interprovincial politics. I don’t.
Because our respective governments and their goals are so very, very different. The electoral college system is not for me, and neither is the prominent role religion plays in American politics, just to name a couple things.
Ummm…you’re saying that half of Alberta has migrated to Saskatchewan and Newfoundland? News to me, my friend, news to me.
You’re wrong. Quebec should absorb. This way most of the whining would come from a single province. Also I think it would be fun to watch all these Albertans trying to learn French 
No, reverse that.