What Americans know and Canadians just don't get.

A few comments.

Canadians refer to all Americans as “Upper Mexicans”. This sumarizes both their history and their love of funny hats. Being further South just makes you a little more low-down.

Canadians never wanted to make the turkey a national symbol, unlike Ben Franklin (it just sort of happened). America is the only place to make all their money the same colour. Not only does this help confuse the genetically disadvantage that people your shores and government, but it makes it easy for the Iraqis to counterfeit, which they are believed to do to the tune of $20,000,000,000. When I play Monopoly, I like to be the shoe.

You don’t give a shit when all your cousins marry, why would you be bothered by history or world events? Hey! I think wrestling is on!

So is alcohol. At least our beer contains some. Miller and Genessee produce much crappier beer than you can get in Cuba or India. Premium brands like “Maine Shipyard” were clearly intended to go into the boat’s motor.

We tend to give you our cuilturasl detritius when we are done with them, and keep the good stuff (like the Hip) for ourselves. The people overrated them are Americans. You can also keep William Shatner, Tom Green and Paul Schaeffer. We just lent you Shania Twain to convince you suckers to spent your bloated tourist dollars in Sudbury, so we don’t have to.

Well, it’s not a sport like XFL, or Tempation Island, or whatever candy-ass activities you watch while drinking the cowpiss we export to you guys. Demolition derby without the cars? Where do I sign up?

You tend to be on the molesting end. The plural of moose is “meese”. Raccoons (spelled thusly) only molest Upper Mexicans; it took years of training by the Canadian armed forces but is their biggest success in years. The RCMP only enforces the law in seven of the ten provinces. They often wear turbans. They don’t prevent forest fires. Texans enforce the law by removing offensive anti-pollution statutes and executing the downtrodden.

[QUOTE]
7. If you’re going to steal our culture, at least get the decade right.
[/QUOTE}

Pretty fly for a white guy. What decade do you think it is now? I hope when I’m eighty, I can still dress like a twenty year old using all the hip and fashionable culture from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, 20s, 30s and 40s. Steal your culture? Bacteria breed freely. You can keep your Staph and your recessive genes, just keep your hands off our magazines.

Of course. Your better than everyone, and god too. Even god will eventually talk English to you if you repeat it often and loudly enough. Sort of poetic the way that deep down, god is just like any other foreign type. Pass the aerosol cheese.

Incidentally, many of our leaders have been Rhodes scholars or academically gifted, much like Bush and Cheney. This Hour has 22 Minutes is the sharpest political satire since Yes, Minister. Who else could convince three million people to get a major political candidate to change his name to Doris? The American pride comes at the expense of Americna humility, a rare commodity if ever their was. The fact that four year olds take pomp and ceremony seriously does not make it less pompose or more cerebral.

I’m really going to have to start proofreading stuff before I submit it. Of course, as Americans prove, pefection is overrated. It is also bad form in Canada to spell “pompous” and “cultural” correctly. Make you elitist, and all.

St. Attila wrote:

Canada has a history?!

In the words of Bob Dylan:

“Patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.”
When your chest swells with pride as your countries olympic teams achieves gold it’s a lovely rush.

But more intelligent beings know that it borders on bigotry. What did you do to support these athletes, beside buying a burger on Olympic day at Harvey’s?

You had absolutely nothing to do with this event that inspires you to feel such pride. I’m not saying we don’t all feel it, I believe we do, but we also know it’s not all that and a bag of chips.

Think back to when the Canadian embassy in Tehran smuggled out those American diplomats. The US was swept up in it all. As proud and patriotic as Canadians felt, they also knew it was only the right thing to do, not a heroic act.

Think about it, what were they going to do? Toss them back out into the streets to get strung up. Canadians were a little bemused by the fuss the US made.

Dr_Paprika, that there was pure comic genius.
Hilarious, whereas Sealemon88’s was more laughable. :smiley:

Kidding, kidding. :slight_smile:

I would add more, but the good Dr said pretty much what I was going to say (though in a more humourous way). Except, QuickSilver, you’ve never seen KITH and you call yourself Canadian? Tsk, tsk. :wink:
But yeah, comedy is something that Canadians are great at.

Philistines. :mad:

grumble

[sub]Would it be mean to tease you, Dr_Paprika, that you misspelled ‘perfection’ in your last post? :)[/sub]

Jokes aside for a moment, I want to reply seriously to parts of the OP…

As St. Attila, lolagranola and Dr_Paprika demonstrate, Canadians often do have pride in their identity as rabidly as any American.

This actually saddens me a bit. Is your daughter not aware of her Canadian heritage at all?

You know what I loved seeing? Rick Mercer interviewing the PM over burgers and milkshakes in a Harvey’s restaurant. I can’t imagine anything like that ever happening in the United States, and I would much rather have a national leader who’s capable of being that human than one who needs to “kick ass and take names”.

I do wish his English was better, but he can hardly be blamed for his speech impediment. And if we elected Prime Ministers based on their looks and speaking ability, Stockwell Day would be running the country right now…yeesh…

I’m not sure that I like the direction this thread is going in, but I feel almost obligated to respond.

Background: I say it in every other post, but if you haven’t heard, I’m an American studying in Canada. I’m partial to both cultures for different reasons.

A few observations in what I hope was the original spirit of the thread:
[ul]
[li]Cream soda is brown. Not pink, not clear, but brown.[/li][li]There’s more to national pride than being proud you’re not of a different nationality. That’s to say, the extent of “Canadian pride”, in a lot of cases, seems to be “I’m glad I’m not American.” Molson is doing a lot to change that, and I’m glad. :)[/li][/ul]
There are probably others, which I’ll try to think of.

Other observations in general:
[ul]
[li]Colored money is a good thing, but it still confuses me.[/li][li]Extra letters in words are not necessarily a good thing, but there’s nothing wrong with it.[/li][li]I’ve heard lots of music, from various eras, by both The Barenaked Ladies and The Tragically Hip. I’m glad you exported one and kept the other. :slight_smile: (Some of the stuff by the Hip’s not bad … and it’s better than Our Lady Peace.)[/li][quote]
Charging $10 (Can.) to exit the country JUST AIN’T RIGHT.
[/quote]
Huh? That all depends on where you’re exiting. I pay $2/$3 (pick your currency) every time I cross the border, in either direction, because there’s a bridge. When I cross on land, there’s no fee…
[li]In my limited experience, Canadians make better beer. But Sam Adams is still my favorite. =)[/li]
And lastly …
[li]Cheap tuition, due to publicly supported higher-education, is a Good Thing. Thank you.[/li]
And lest I forget …
[li]The beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.[/li][/ul]

Should I think of more, I’ll try to post…

Well, it’s true that every time the US waged war with Canada the Candians won. Military historian John Keegan states that the Canadian Army was the best on the Western Front in WWI. And the Cnadians really kicked ass at Monte Casino and elsewhere in WWII.

So does this scare me as an American? Hell no! Someday we’ll turn off all our broadcasting and shut down all or roads for ten full minutes, long enough for you guys up there to forget about us and shed your unifying, colletive dislike for us, and then you French Canadians and English Canadians will go back to kicking the shit out of eachother. We’ll all tune in to watch it on ESPN while drinking our bad beer and good *whiskey - just like you all sat smugly watching the Rodney King riots while drinking your good beer and bad *whisky. Flame all you want, St, Attila, but the fact is that Atilla is a saint or at least a hero in counties with balls like Turkey and Hungary. In Canada you could’ve had Louis Riel but you chose Dudley DoRight.

*Scotch & Canadian = whisky. Irish & bourbon = whiskey. “Men who are free drink whiskey with an E”

All you need in the States to shut down your roads for ten minutes or more is two inches of snow. One inch out of season. (We call this season “winter”.)

If you don’t watch Canadian football on ESPN, why would you watch English and French Canadians fight, or curl, or whine, or whatever they do? Come on! Over wrestling? Or two white guys boxing?

Cream Soda is made with cream. In Canada, it should be called “Cream Pop”, since we don’t hold with the wussy sounding “soda” used “closer to Mexico” (nod, wink). When you first add the cream, the drink is originally a lighter colour. But have your cream soda any way you want, Jocko.

Americans flatter themselves when they say Canadian culture is defined as not being American. This simplistic view is generally made by invertebrates (listed in order of decreasing evolutionary level) such as reporters, reporters for the CBC, reporters from Southam News, or reporters from The London Free Press. In fact, West Coasters define themselves by their love of strong marijuana, using Vancouver in every third sentence, wearing twelve layers of clothing when the mercury dips to minus three and talking about how some druggie in Gastown tried to steal the first four layers of their clothing. East coasters define themselves by trying to convince themselvs they LIKE the taste of Ganong chicken bones, fiddleheads, salt cod and screech. Quebecers define themselves by their innate love for Jos. Louis, Pepsi, Kraft Dinner and insipid TV translations. I was watching Les Simpsons, the episode where Lisa and family go to D.C. for a jingoistic essay contest. It was gratifying to see the French had translated “Those fat cats in Washington” to “Those fat cats in Ottawa”. Seeing as how the rest of the episode revolved around seeing D.C. Monuments, wondered if this blow for Quebec nationalism was worth it, OR if this sort of thing happens pretty much all the time.

Well, considering Rocky & Bullwinkle was originally shown on an American channel, I would call that an American stereotype of a Canadian hero, not a Canadian hero.
But, I’m rather impressed by your knowledge of Canadian history. I act in The Trial of Louis Riel every summer. I wouldn’t want to be the one to call him a Canadian hero, though, as he is still a rather controversial figure after all these years. An impressive individual to say the least, though.

Oh, and btw, I only drink Irish whiskey. :smiley:

Well, we’re also not British, or French, or Mongolian for that matter. But comparisons with those countries just don’t seem quite as relevant: they’re not the 5-ton elephant sitting on our doorstep. I do agree that we tend to flog that horse…er, elephant a bit too much, however.

I suspect AETBOND417 is referring to a little extortion at the Vancouver airport called the “Airport Improvement Fee”. Everyone on a departing flight has to shill out $10 before going through security, to pay for the fancy new terminals. They’re damn nice terminals, mind you, but it’s still a nuisance.

By showing your extreme ignorance here you’ve pretty much negated everything else you’ve said, IMO.

What everyone knows and Canadians just don’t get.

Nobody cares that you’re Canadian. Take the damn Maple leaf off your backpack. It’s obnoxious. (Anyone who’s backpacked around Europe will know what I mean.)

Hear, hear. That was priceless.

This reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a Brit, who asked how Americans can tell the bills apart when they’re all the same color (excuse me – colour) and shape.

So I patiently explained: “See, the $10 bill has a ‘10’ on it, and the $20 bill has a ‘20’ on it…” :slight_smile:

Are you kidding me? Wearing that maple leaf in Europe makes a big difference.

I’m an American living in London (for those who don’t already know this) but have a fairly mild accent, which means that people tend to assume I’m Canadian rather than American (except for those odd people who think I’m Irish). You have no idea the sorts of things people say about Americans when they think there aren’t any around, and there is a definite difference in the way people treat Americans and Canadians – especially on the Continent, and especially in Paris.

American tourists have such a bad reputation that Americans are often automatically treated with scorn and bad service, whereas Canadians have a reputation (deserved or not) for being quiet and well-mannered when abroad (and presumably don’t tend to complain loudly about how much better things are back in Canada). This has been so much the case in my experience that there have been occasions when travelling abroad that I’ve told people I was Canadian in order to keep the waiters from spitting in my soup. This is the dark underside of the US’s constant blustering about “we’re better than you”.

So I can’t really blame the Canadians for blatantly indicating “Not American! Not a whining obnoxious culturally-ignorant asshole!” when travelling.

Mind you, the British complain about American tourists, but they’re even worse when they go abroad. :slight_smile:

No, must resist urge to involve myself in undignified Canada verse US thread… hold it in…

Canada didn’t exist as an independent nation in 1812 so declaring that the US ever fought with Canada isn’t exactly true. As far as them “winning” the continued existence of the US refutes that idea. The British colonists living in what now is Canada did successfully repel an American invasion however.

There don’t we all feel better? No? Fine then, I’ll slink off. But I have one last statement to make before I do.

I kinda like the pink cream soda.

A few more comments…

You only say that because we have decent Mexican food down here. We were smart enough to toss the Brits out on their ‘arse’, and their crappy food with them. As far as funny hats go, I have one word: tooks. Could you at least have come up with a decent name for this geeky looking thing?

Yeah, we just figure that a picture of a bird is a little more exciting than a leaf. America makes their money all the same color because we have numbers, and know how to count. I can understand y’alls confusion with this, since you can’t add extra unnecessary digits to a given number, like you do with words. I’m sure using the metric system adds to the confoosion.

(Actually, my comment was a stab at y’all being part of the Commonwealth.) Hey, I only dated my cousin! Besides, in all seriousness, aren’t Canadians into wrestling too? Chris Benoit, Chris Jerico, the Harts…

I knew this comment of mine would backfire on me. I got nuthin’.

For these “gifts”, alone, we should nuke y’alls maple sucking asses. “My heart will go onnnnnnnnnnnn-” THWACK!

Bend over.

Who cares? unless you’re getting molested by them, I suppose…

I’m not even going to go there…

In all seriousness, I visited Canada (Edmonton specifically) last year, and I found the people to be warm, intelligent, and easy going. The country is beautiful, and the mountains were breathtaking. Canada has always struck me as being a little more…mature as a country than America.

I’ve never seen This Hour Has 22 Minutes, but if it’s half as good as Kids In The Hall or SCTV, then I’m sure it’s excellent.

BTW, Dr. Paprika, can I borrow this sentence: “The fact that four year olds take pomp and ceremony seriously does not make it less pompose or more cerebral.”? It sums up nicely my problem with forcing our kids to take the Pledge of Alegiance.

BlackKnight: :smiley:

This Hour Has 22 Minutes is the funniest show EVER!! That’s what I miss the most since I’ve moved from Detroit, where you can pick up CBC.

Why are Canadians funnier than Americans?

I think some of you have taken my OP a bit more seriously than I intended it to come across. Perhaps I should have used a generous smattering of smiling emoticons. Go figure…

But to sum up:

I think I clearly stated that too much nationalism is a cloyingly annoying and sometimes even dangerous trait. Most intelligent people avoid it as much as possible. On the other hand, telling everyone who will listen that you are “Canadian”, not to be confused with “American”, is not such a great tribute to Canadians either. It sounds a little appologetic to me. Kind of like, “I know I look and sound like an American but I’m really a Canadian. See? I’ve got a maple leaf on my backpack and underwear to prove it!”

I find it more than a little unsettling that four year olds are made to learn and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance before the age where they are capable of fully understanding the meaning of the words and ideas they are made to memorize. I’m simply illustrating via example how, where and when this American national pride is established. It’s brain washing to be sure (IMO), but I do think that this kind of instilled pride is missing from Canadian culture. Is that a good thing? Perhaps. But America is still the envy of most of the world’s nations and (without minimizing its freedoms) I think the pride element has something to do with it. I mean look, have you heard of one Palestinian terr… err, I mean dissident… accepting Chretien’s invitation to come live in Canada? I’ll bet you an American dollar that a whole bunch of them would like to come to the US. :wink:

And St. Attila, yes I do think that moving to the US for better financial opportunities was a good idea for me and my family. I do think that we are better off financially due to the lower taxes we pay here. I do think that the money we’ve saved will provide us with a better retirement - especially if we move back to Canada. I do think that our improved financial status affords us a better life style, better education for our kids, very good medical care and a safe neighbourhood in which to live and prosper. Do I feel bad about the millions of families who can’t afford these things both in Canada and the US? Yes. But I feel bad about starving kids in Africa, quake vicitims in India and war victims in Bosnia. But I’m not responsible for all those tragedies and the best I’ve been able to do is to do everything I can to make the lives of my family members as good as I can with the resources that I have and to make sure that my kids will be able to do the same when they are grown and have families of their own. Should I feel bad about not having to pay 54% of my wages to Canadian social programs simply because I am technically still a Canadian citizen? Now who’s taking patriotism to absurd levels?

And as for Canadian pride, I still maintain that it primarily revolves around the fact that we can say we are not American. Meanwhile, we all know that economically we are so closely tied to the US that even the National Bank of Canada cannot let 24 hours pass without altering the lending rate in accordance with that of the US changes. Meanwhile, we all know that culturally we are so tied to the US that there is hardly a TV broadcast or a print publication in the US that is not readily available in Canada. Let’s face it, Canadian (or more precisely British Loyalists) may have won a battle or two against the Americans back in the 1800’s but America has won the cultural and economic war. In light of that fact, the CBC is an amusing (and poorely funded) distraction at best.

I’ve said it before an I’ll say it again… show me a Canadian who would not trade in his/her Canadian citizenship for an American one given a par exchange on the dollar and a promise to let him/her continue to live and work just where he/she always has but now under US rule. The entire country would be sold to the US in a matter of hours.