OH! :eek: Very funny - I had this window open then got distracted, and came back to find this post. Hmmm - listen, IF anyone is emigrating to the west of Scotland, best not threaten to put holes in any Tims, OK? 
heheheh
(You know, I have never understood why countires cannot manage a sort of exchange system - you know - anyone from country A wishing to go to country B, just exchange places. If only they would let me run the world…)
Diversity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The blacks end up sticking with the blacks, the asians stick with other asians, the latinos with other latinos, and everyone makes fun of the special needs kids. Besides, the color of one’s skin isn’t the only feature that factors into diversity. Surely there must be something to people other than race, right?
While I was referring to numerical parity, I see your point, and I think you’re right.
Anyway, the Canadian dollar closed Friday at about 83.5 US cents. (It was ~65¢ US as recently as January 2003.) Meanwhile, the Euro, which was worth ~88¢ US as recently as April 2002, closed Friday just upwards of $1.29.
I’m staying in the U.S., but I’m thinking maybe it’s time for my money to mostly reside elsewhere, if I’d like it to retain its purchasing power over time. That isn’t cowardly; that’s just common sense, given Bush’s track record and the election results.
Of course there is. Wealth and power 
Maybe I’m spoiled because it wasn’t like that when I was in school. My friends and I were all like a big poster for the UN (not that we cared - we just liked each other). So when I’m talking about diversity, I’m not just talking about it for the sake of diversity, but actually having a friendship with everyone. I loved it - I got to see some traditions that my friends’ parents had brought with them from their home countries (one of my friends’ parents were Korean immigrants, one of my friends had come from Vietnam with her family when she was a child, and one of my friends’ mom had moved to the US from Jamaica before she was married), and they saw how my family kept a lot of our German and Native American traditions (mostly German, but we do have some of the NA traditions passed down from my great-grandmother on my mom’s side).
I’m not talking about diversity just for the sake of diversity. Perhaps we had a different situation in our school, but we were all friends, regardless of color. (And yes, we had kids who were very, very poor to kids who were pretty well-off.)
Ehh…maybe that was an unusual situation. It just didn’t seem unusual at the time.
Ava
The advantage of having left the country somewhere around the time of the second Clinton inauguration is that I don’t have to leave it again now.
Here’s what I said on my bulletin board when this subject was brought up by another user:
Right now, for liberals it’s a no-win situation. Stay, and be called traitors, unpatriotic, and so on at every turn, becasue we don’t agree with every point of the Republican platform, or some actions of the current administration. “America … love it or leave it, commie!” Consider leaving, and be called traitors, unpatriotic, and so on. When you hear from so many sources that you’re un-American, it’s hard to feel good about this country. “Coward! You’re too much of a pussy if you have to leave the Greatest Country on Earth.”
“But you lived with Nixon in office.” Yeah. The Nixon administration also implemented wide-sweeping environmental protection programs, a gradual pullout from Vietnam, and were proposing universal health care. The Nixon-era Republican party also had liberal and conservative wings, unlike today. “You lived with Reagan in office.” Sure, but his policies were implemented with the checks and balances of a majority Democratic legislature, Imagine what Reagan would have done if there was a Republican-majority legislature.
This comparision may be extreme, but let’s say you’re a Jew living in Germany around 1932. There’s new leadership, and they and their followers seem to talk an awful lot about how Jews are responsible for all the nation’s ills. Would you stay, hoping it will get better, or go, even though you love your country? Look at what happened to those that stayed.
I doubt liberals will be sent into reeducation or concentration camps, but the comparisons are there, Listen to conservative talk radio, replace the word “liberal” or “Democrat” with “Jew”, and it sounds like something from a History Channel documentary.
[image of family dressed in “IMAGINE NO LIBERALS” shirts]
“IMAGINE NO LIBERALS.” How about imagine no blacks, imagine no Jews, imagine no Methodists, imagine no gays, imagine no Libertarians, imagine no anybody that disagrees with you.
Liberals are frustrated because we feel we can’t work to make this a better country; we run up against a brick wall every time we try. Compromise is no longer in the vocabulary of the executive and legislative branches. The checks and balances are gone in government and the media. Meanwhile, liberals are bombarded with messages about how they’re all traitors. Sure, there’s some anger heading from left to right, but not as much. How can you feel patriotic, or proud to be an American, when you’re told by the powers that be that your ideas are blasphemous and sacrelige, and that presence is no longer welcome?
Very well said elmwood. Some of us in the center feel the same thing the “liberals” feel as well.
I’m no traitor. Like I’ve said I’ve always been a contributing member of US society. I pay my taxes without a grumble. I don’t place a burden on the system. Hell, I don’t even write off donations on my taxes. So if the 51% of those on the right (more then half the USA) want me to piss off,. you bet. I’ll contribute someplace else. If they want to continue to call me a traitor after I leave, fine. I don’t care. It won’t be my problem anymore. It’s their anger. Their issues. Their bad juju.
If the US then wants to turn into Jesusland and invade countries left and right and allow themselves to be dominated by the big, bad fear machine, so be it. But that is not the country I want to live in and it isn’t the country we always heard about.
This, of course, makes you a bad American.
Taxes, as we all know, go to support the crack habits of promiscuous welfare mothers who churn out babies just so they can get more money from the nanny state. The rest of your tax dollars fund “art” projects that undermine American values by criticizing our leaders and drenching the Lord with urine.
HA!
Yeah, I know.
One thing I’ve never understood is bitching about taxes. While my tax dollar might have funded a silly art project it has done so many other great things. It helped fund the Hubble, the Shuttle and the ISS -and would have funded the moon landings if I were old enough. It has helped poor kids with broken legs and fixed the bodies of brave men and women who served in the armed forces. It paved the streets I drive and keeps them lit at night. It allows me to cross the river in the middle of town without having to wait for a boat. My tax dollar went towards fixing places after hurricanes, floods or fires. Even this whole crazy “internets” thing was funded in part with tax money.
But, I guess now that the majority of US people think taxes should be lower and I’m just a crazy commie for not minding paying them, there will be a special new un-education camp set up for people like me. Paid for and built with,. um,. tax dollars.
IMHO the US has just been uncontested on the top of the heap too long. It, and many of its citizens, have become arrogant boors to a large extent. “If the world don’t like us, fuck 'em.”
My grandparents emigrated. My parents emigrated, with me, to America. I never conceived that I would even consider leaving. But, as others have said, the prevailing political momentum of this country takes it further from my views every day.
In the end, a country is only as great as its people. And if the people who value liberty, freedom, rationalism, justice, and equality are dismissed as an unruly minority, then the country just isn’t as good. The USA which won WWII and the Cold War may not be the USA of 2004 or 2008. We in the minority become more worried, as things like the War on Terror is used as a political tool to ensure us permanent minority status.
I’m not leaving yet. I can still make a better life for myself here (with its ample and fair NIH granting for primary research and incredible academic medical system) than anywhere else. But the Jewish upbringing in me is a constant chime that reminds me that one should never become too attached to a country or a way of life. Right now, that chime is nearly inaudible. But it has become slightly louder since the election, which has hammered home the fact that the majority of this country doesn’t care that their rights have been eroded, they have been sold on a fraudulent war, and that they so easily will turn their back on a world community of states. Not that other countries should dictate our behavior or prevent us from defending ourselves. Rather, that we can define a code of conduct simply because we can bomb the shit out of everyone else. I don’t buy into that.
P.S. According to Salon, slightly over 5,000 Americans migrated north last year. I’m sure that the net vector points squarely south, still.
Hugh Hewitt is one of the most active right wing bloggers out there.
His motto is Potestas Democraticorum delenda est!. I believe that roughly translates to “Destroy Democrats wherever they are found.”
Michael Savage is one of the bigger right wing talk radio hosts out there. He sells shirts with the motto “Liberalism Is A Mental Disorder.”
One of the most influential leaders of the Christian right (or whatever they want to be called nowadays), James Dobson, accused a senior Democratic Senator of hating God’s people.
The examples go on. Sure there is hate speech on the left, but point me to one mainstream pundit or one influential policy wonk who accuses anyone of being a hater or having a mental disease or wanting to “destroy” the opposition. Show me one mainstream Democrat who has ever referred to Republicans as the enemy, as the [url=“http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1260345/posts”]Free Republic
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routinely does.
The rabid Right uses fiery rhetoric but has been (barely) restrained to date. What happens when we give them full control of the government? Is there any reason to think that they won’t follow through on some of this stuff? That they don’t believe what they actively preach.
So the OP bailed?
I hate it when they do that.
I don’t know why he would. This thread was so openly accepted.
Maybe he’s too busy listening to talk radio to find out what he’s supposed to say next.
One of the local blowhards was blathering about this very subject on Monday morning this week. He said that (some huge number, I forget) times more people contacted the Canadian immigration department in the days after the election compared to the usual amounts. He eventually quickly mentioned that the numbers he’s talking about are hits on the Canadian’s immigration department web page. Uh, that doesn’t count as contacting someone, jackass. I apparently contacted them after the election too because someone posted that link on my forum. :smack:
Hey folks, I haven’t bailed on the thread. I’ve been reading the responses to my rant and trying to find the time to respond. I’ve re-read my post. Wow. I never realized as I was typing how incredibly vitriolic it was. I went off half-cocked about a fleeting opinion.
After pondering what I wrote, I realized I don’t truly believe in the shit I spewed.
So, here it is. An apology. I’m sorry.
The thing that set me off was the frustration over the fading unity of our nation.
I know there are a variety of reasons for this division and like most of you, I am scared shitless. Not that I left room for any other assumption, but I am not a right winger, for the record. I am also not of the “love it or leave it” crowd. Perhaps more of a “love it or change it” mindset.
I have no problem with the fact that people emigrate to other countries, and they do so for a variety of reasons, and I don’t believe that leaving is a sign of dissent or is “unpatriotic.” The thing that frustrates me is the “us against them” attitude we have adopted. Regardless of party affiliations and political beliefs, I think it’s safe to say we all want the same thing, a solid, safe, and peaceful environment in which to live.
I have to admit, certain things up north are appealing to me also. Less violent crime and the fact that I could actually marry my partner and have it legally recognized. But I stay and I send a shitstorm of letters to members of the house and senate, I send them to the president. I vote. Even I don’t like what I see happening here in the States. So I am doing my miniscule part to change it.
Anyway, I certainly was prepared for the onslaught of rotten tomatoes thrown at me for what I posted, but I had no idea so many would respond. Wow.
Again I apologize for my accusations and overall nastiness. It’s the pit, I was in a shitty mood, I ranted and raved in the one venue I knew I could without being physically assaulted and I’m all better now. Thanks for the clarity folks.
Oh, by the way, I’m not a “he”
Pure class.
Well said, The Chao Goes Mu.
Well said. I apologize for my assumption. I’m especially sorry for calling you the worst thing of all, a talk radio listener! :eek:
Ok, now let’s start working on 2008. 
The government of a nation is intended to represent its people. When it does not, what can be said of the nation?
This Canadian welcomes the disenfranchised with open arms.