Yes and no. We have a militarist strain and a pacifist strain in our culture, always struggling for control. Partly it’s a regional thing – the South is notably more militaristic than the North and has always contributed a disproportionate number of volunteers to the armed forces. (Also disproportionately prone to crimes of violence and to using violence in matters of “honor.”) There’s a theory, developed by David Hackett Fischer in Albion’s Seed – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hackett_Fischer – that attributes this to the regional cultures of different parts of Britain that provided most of the settlers for different parts of colonial America. E.g., the Puritans of East Anglia mostly went to New England, the Scotch-Irish to the Highland South, etc.; and they established regional “hearth cultures” to which later waves of immigrants assimilated (instead of assimilating to a single national culture). You’ll find an excellent analysis of this as it applies to American militarism vs. pacifism in Vietnam: The Necessary War, by Michael Lind – http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684870274/sr=8-1/qid=1148654281/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3291822-7024911?_encoding=UTF8.
Quit projecting your own sense of inferiority onto others. The opinions of a peasant in a dictatorship don’t matter because they have zero power in society. The opinions of the average American matter because we vote imperialistic war-mongers into office. Fact of life.
What sense of inferiority do you refer to?
I vote for my leader in the same way you do. I have power n my society. I don’t hold any illusion that I dictate my governements forign policy any more that you do yours.
The only thing I see is the same old blowhard assertion that just because you punch a ballot or pull a lever or what ever you do to vote you are defacto the governemnet. Maybe in theory but look at the reality.
Last I checked the “War mongers” in power have been spying on who you call and when, arresting people without habeus corpus then denying them council, setting up arbitrary laws that are requested by corperations rather than individual petitions by the public, effectively shutting down any oposition with calls of treason and cowtowing the press… Doesn’t sound much like the land of the free to me.
Was this really what the average person was asking for? Sounds to me like your opinions are equally worthless. But you get to vote and you got the baaadist military out ther so hooray for you.
I think he was joking. Just saying.
ooop! Sorry I was expecting that reaction… guess I got carried away.
Anyone have a ladder This horse is a lot higher than I thought.
It is okay. You had some good a valid points. Our current admin is so bad it forced me to vote for Kerry who I do not like. They took 2 narrow victories as a mandate from the people to seemingly do what they wish. I was just afraid you might have had the wrong impression about Silenus. He’s a nice guy, really.
Jim
Fun, too! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silenus 
Hey, I love Canada!
I’ve always thought of Canda as America’s fatter, mentally-challenged, little brother. 
“I’m from Canada and they say I’m slow, eh?”
(Sorry, I just watched that episode of The Simpsons today.)
[homer to queen elizabeth ii]
I mean, we’re your children! I know we don’t call as often as our goody-two-shoes brother Canada . . . who, by the way, has never had a girlfriend . . . just sayin’ . . .
[/htqeii]
And I’ll take it as one. As John Raulston Saul said “A stable democracy is boring.” If the rest of the world knows much about you when you are as small as we are (population of course) its probably because you are pulling an Iraq or North Korea.
We I was younger I would get bent out of shape if Americans didn’t know much about us, but then, I don’t know much about Belgium or Denmark or specific states in the USA.
Sorry aboot the speeling and grammer eh? We’s a little slow here, eh.
Reading this reminded me of seeing a Stealth Bomber from my office, flying unusually low over the city I live in. For a few seconds me and the co-workers around me seemed stunned. I yelled “OH NO! They found out that we have oil!”. Which probably got me the most laughs I’ve ever gotten.
It turns out there was an airshow that weekend in Niagara.
Depends on the context, I suppose - I’d be hard-pressed to name all nine of SCOTUS, but I can do the current SCC:
Chief Justice McLachlin - appointed puisne judge, 1989, replacing McIntyre J.; appointed Chief Justice of Canada, 2000, succeeding Lamer C.J.C. (retired)
Justice Bastarache - appointed puisne justice, 1997, replacing La Forest J. (retired)
Justice Binnie - appointed puisne justice, 1998, replacing Sopinka J. (died)
Justice Le Bel - appointed puise justice, 2000, filling Lamer C.J.C.'s seat (retired)
Justice Deschamps - appointed puisne justice, 2002, replacing L’Heureux-Dubé J. (retired)
Justice Fish - appointed puisne justice, 2003, replacing Gonthier J. (retired)
Justice Abella - appointed puisne justice 2004, replacing Iacobucci J. (retired)
Justice Charron - appointed puisne justice 2004, replacing Arbour J. (retired)
Justice Rothstein - appointed puisne justice 2006, replacing Major J. (retired)
But as I said, it’s context - lawyers are more likely to be familiar with the names of the current justices.
If it’s cocktail party talk you’re after, try this: the current Supreme Court of Canada is the world’s most gender-balanced national high court - four of the nine justices are women, including Madam Chief Justice McLachlin. (No relation.)
I have to echo the “stable democracies are boring” vibe. I’m Canadian, reasonably well educated on the humanities and world affairs, and know very little about Canadian history or politics. I’ve never been particularly involved in the local political process. I’m a liberal but it doesn’t particularly bother me that we have a conservative goverment, because political parties in Canada by and large do not stray very far from the comfortable center of the spectrum, not when they form goverments anyway. Quite frankly, I’m just fine with things staying that way.
“Meh” is the best I can manage.
[Homer]
“Marge, anyone could miss Canada. All tucked away down there.”
[/Homer]
I am a Canadian that was educated from grade 7 through university in California. I owe California a debt for an excellent education. I have American friends, in general like Americans, but your government drives me crazy. It is arrogant, imperialistic (has been from the very beginning of your history), sinister, self centered and so on. Americans in general ‘pump’ themselves up that it is the only place to live and no other country has the freedoms they have. Frankly, I think Canada is far more liberal and tolerant than the USA and prefer living here. It annoys me that Canadians know so little about our country and that we do not promote it like citizens of the USA promote their country. For example, Americans (and I hate that term as technically we are all Americans, living in N. American…and that includes Mexico) tout Lewis & Clark until I could gag. Canadians all know about Lewis & Clark. They reached the Pacific in November 1805. Alexander MacKenzie was the first to cross N. America—through Canada—and he reached the Pacific on July 22, 1793…essentially 12 years earlier. www.collectionscanada.ca/explorers How many people know of Samuel Hearne and his voyage to the Coppermine in the artic from Hudson Bay in 1771 or Simon Fraser or the great geographer David Thomson? I find it amusing living on the road to “Alaska” that for many Americans making their ‘epic’ journey to mecca first discouver Canada is in the way and have to travel through British Columbia and the Yukon (many of whom believe the Yukon is somehow part of the US) and probaby wonder when in hell will they get through Canada and finally reach Alaska. I think most Canadians can probably name at least 30 states if not more but I doubt on a percentage basis most Americans can list 6 provinces (a hint—we have 13 political boundaries). Cheers…
Goddamit, I scrolled all through this thread hoping no one had posted this yet! :mad: