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U.S. Says Canada Cares Too Much About Liberties
A cheeky writer at Canada's Ottawa Citizen newspaper has written a story about the U.S. State Department's 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism.
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I'm a brit, but things like this make me respect Canada. Particularly after watching Bowling For Columbine (watch it if you haven't).
Of course, SP reduces that respect, as it tells me to hate canada. And they do have funny accents. And flapping heads.
they'd slaughter the true terrorists and elect a REAL leader. George Shrubya, Rumsfeld, Poindexter the Criminal, and Ollie the crook North would all go under the knife, and other countries would be free of the threat of hostile invasion by a "liberating" force.
Honestly, do Americans really believe that the war in Iraq is more than a sham to bolster a weakling's public image? more than an oil grab? I pity the lot of 'em. Eh.
A little policy issue thrown at the bottom of that article. The U.S. administration is unhappy that marijuana possession in Canada is now a ticketing offense (parking meter sort of thing) instead of a criminal offense. I'm sure someone will have to draw the paralel that's been brought before that the "war on terrorism" has allowed the broadening of police powers which are being used for the "war on drugs". I'm voting Democrat in 2004, and I'm a Libertarian.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
the RIAA, MPAA, DMCA, PATRIOT Act, infinite copyright extensions, and last but not least, true terrorism disguised as "liberation of the people." What a jolly surprise.
What's next, mandatory lobotomies to bring the rest of the world into line with their ridiculous regime? Sadly, that wouldn't surprise me in the least.
We have vast oil resources in Western Canada. It is exported to the US very cheaply, and here in Eastern Canada, we import oil from the Middle East at much higher prices.
We also grow large quantities of wheat in Western Canada. However, we are forced to ship it to Eastern Canada first (Canadian Wheat Board). Then we get to buy it back at higher prices. If a farmer tries to circumvent this procedure they are thrown in jail.
Privacy is not liberty, nor is it a "civil liberty", although it might be a "civil right". A liberty is a right to carry out some type of action without being obstructed by anyone else. Privacy rights restrict the actions of others (to obtain or publish information about you) which makes them claim-rights. So the US complaint about Canadian privacy laws has nothing at all to do with liberty.
This gives a pretty good introduction to the theoretical classification of rights.
The stuff about legalizing dope is of course another matter entirely. I have no idea why American politicians gets so wound up about dope, when most Americans have used it without comming to much harm.
This is interesting.. the following are some stats I found on crime in Canada and the US (and Sweden, see this page.)
Reading this reminded me of something I read in my local newspaper (Canadian) a few weeks after 9/11.
It was basically a transcribed message (or something like it) from Osama bin Laden saying, essentially, that they (al Queda) had already won. Supposedly, the idea behind their attacks was not to kill citizens, or destroy landmarks. It was to kill liberties, and destroy freedom. Apparantly Osama wanted the citizens of the US to live in fear, and to loose their freedoms. He wanted them to experience life as other countries did, with checkpoints, searches, and the constant fear of attacks.
It would seem he succeeded admirably.
..or how about monaco for a target?
though, ironically, if i had a great deal of money(i mean, like, shitloads) and wanted total freedom(for myself), i would go to the russia instead of usa, because then i could buy out both the mob and the goverment with less AND get away with _anything_(including such pearls as murder, torture & etc). or i could just stay here where nobody needs bodyguards, everybody attends to public(as opposite to private) schools, tuition to universities is 170$ per year(no it's not canada)..
thumb rule for inter-country political/ethnic terrorism would be "don't mess with us, we don't mess with you". freaking out about it doesn't help at all anyways, it happens all the time. you can't get it all out by extending police authority, the terrorists always have an advantage because they don't play by the rules (you don't become one if you can achieve what you are wishing by playing by the rules). in europe bombings happen every so often(sometimes, even with a valid political agenda), of course you can feel bad about them but that doesn't mean you must freak out. the amount of freaking out about the wtc is just way too much (as is the eye per eye tactic, if everybody followed that there would be only blind men on earth, yeah, i did take that from somewhere).
is this no anon-box thingy also part of war against T?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I don't honestly understand why people get so fired up about marijuana being legalized. I think canada has the right idea here.
;)
Disclaimer: I don't actually smoke marijuana...although i use a Mac, so that's close enough
Deaths from tobacco cigarettes in the US, 2002: 400,000
Deaths from Marijuana in the US, 2002: 0.00
Now tell me, which one should be illegal?
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
No. Any country without free healthcare is second world in my book. I hate what the USA does to its poor and I hate that the Chileans copy them.
[For the record, I'm a Canadian currently living in Chile]
Back in July 2002, a group of us crossed into Canada at the Blue Waters Bridge in Port Huron/Sarnia for a bachelor's party trip to Toronto. We were pulled over and thoroughly questioned and searched (vehicle, clothes, etc.) on the Canadian side after crossing. However, on the way back in to the US, we were waved on through.
As much of a generalization as this might be, (hell it might even be borderline bigotry) I really think the problem is that 50% of this country is in the south. I'm reluctant to be so simplistic in my judgement, but I only need talk to my relatives in Kentucky, or visit the barber shop here in North Carolina to see people just gushing about our beloved aristocrat. You should've heard the way they were wow'ed by him landing on an aircraft carrier, 'Oooh! I even heard he flew at the controls for half the trip!' 'Wow!'
To me it's like everyone is insane. No one sees him as putting PR above the reality of a bloody war, and no one seems to notice that every word that comes out of his mouth wreaks of insincerity. And it's not like I'm trying to play favorites, I hate democrats and republicans equally! They're all phonies! The real republicans are the Libertarians, and the real democrats are the Progressives. But Bush is the worst phony I've ever seen at the mic. You can find better acting in a low budget porno. Unfortunately, I think with voter apathy at an all time high (17% of the voting population was enough for Bush, or Gore, or whichever talking head supposedly got elected) he'll probably get re-elected. This time around he has the new neo-patriotic furvor backing him.
While I share concerns about POTENTIAL infringement of civil liberties. I think a little perspective is in order.
Abraham Lincoln, in my opinion, was one of the greatest U.S. presidents. But he also threw out the writ of habeous corpus. You know... the section of the Constitution prohibiting the government from simply throwing people in jail without a cause.
Northern citizens who criticized Lincoln in the press routinely were thrown in prison. When the U.S. Supreme Court ordered him to stop it, he just ignored the order.
Lincoln is still remembered as one of our greatest presidents.
I understand the fear of infringement of our civil liberties. But "the constitution isn't a suicide pact."
As for our "allies" in Europe and their opinions of this mess. The reality there is, if their own freedoms had depended on their own sense of right and wrong -- and their resolve to confront evil, the French would be speaking German and the Germans would still be goose stepping throughout most of Europe.
The Europeans like to talk of freedom and democracy. But they lack the intestinal fortitude required to do anything about it for those lacking in both of the above.
-dj
- dj
Well, Canada does seem kinda European...
I would say that Canada is a cross between the U.S. and Europe, civically, politically, grammatically, and geographically. As such, it frequently finds itself in the middle of a tug-of-war between the two poles.
I've heard it explained many times, that the reason why America is targeted by terrorists is that "certain elements" are simply jealous of our outstanding quality of life. They want to destroy what they can't build for themselves.
Which is of course mostly nonsense - they american troops out of their countries. Seems the best way to protect homeland security is to remove your soldiers from their homelands.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
To add some more words about the Dutch case ...
The president of France once decided to call the Netherlands a drug country, accusing them of being the source of all drugs coming into France. He happily forgot to mention the harbour of Marseille from which the bulk of French drugs actually comes. But it's always easier to blame someone else instead of fixing one's own problems.
As for borders, don't tell me the US would actually start patrolling every single mile of the Canadian border. Just look at the Norwegian case. Because of the 2,500 kilometers of border they share with Sweden, they are working on joining the Schengen treaty (free circulation between member countries, one visa for all member countries, ...) even though they are not part of the European Union.
Repression doesn't solve the cause of any problem, it just hits the symptoms. If young Americans all smoke joints, it's not because they can go buy it in Canada. Some people who live close to the border might take advantage of it, but for the majority of people, the trip to Canada is too long when you can buy your joint around the corner in Smalltown, USA.
Yes, there is some drug tourism to the Netherlands, but the "drug problem" in the Netherlands is actually much less of a problem than most other European countries.
It's like booze ... if you are not allowed to drink by your parents, the day they are not there, you get totally wasted.
Cheerio,
BrainStop
...they should consider who supplies most of their water. Just the thought of all that water makes me want to go pee in a reservoir.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
How can it be a Democracy when we hand over the decisions to the so called government. I too am an Australian, and if you can't see the fact the many Australians are also unhappy with our government, and express that unhappiness loudly and often, then you are blind to the world around you. The present Australian government is crap, just like in the US. The Australian gov is trying to scrap medicare, in their ever so suttle manner, so that poor people have as much access to medical assitance as they do in the US.
yeah, they are tops, the system is tops. You can always protest, unless they don't want you too, which is what happened in a number of the anti-war protests in this country. You need to apply for a permit to protest, and if they say no, then they have no quarms about sending in the horses, and riot police.
Wake up...
Alaska, no, but they did "liberate" the Alaskan panhandle from Canada. And then too, Britain was the US's bitch.
Okay; I read that link. It's an interesting read, to be sure. I think the author is missing the point.
References to things like the the missile plant in Littleton are moot; I believe that there is no way of actually knowing what Lockheed Martin builds there, no matter what they - or Moore - says.
As for the Heston speech, the author of that site seems to think that the editing is some kind of trick. Moore did not re-construct sentences, as the author opines (in fact, one might point out that he starts to delve into the same kind of misinformation tactics that he is accusing Moore of); cutting to a picture, then cutting to a different sound byte does not constitute some sort of fraud. It was clear to me that these are snippets, in the way they were presented. Heston said all those things. Doesn't matter where he said them - remember the point of the film. The use of phrases like "my cold dead hands" were used at multiple points in the film, to illustrate a certain mind-set.
I surely think there were things exaggerated in Bowling for Columbine. I live in Toronto - I don't know many people who leave their doors unlocked. (I do know more people who do, to my surprise, after asking some friends when the film came out.)
But you are missing the point of the film. The point about the USA being a gun-crazed, fear-induced culture of what are probably honest people, whom are being manipulated in nasty ways. Do you dispute the gun death stats? That's the real point.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Oddly enough, you know, the people who're presently bitterly resenting our foreign policy are decrying exactly such a culture. And I'm not just talking about in Iraq, or Syria, or Egypt -- I'm talking about in France and in our closest ally, the UK, too.
The response to the French not doing exactly what the US wanted was all sorts of infantile French bashing. Anyway Canada is also usually considered to be a strong ally of the US.
Gee, how do you explain the Shias in Iraq right now? They were cheering when the tanks went into Baghdad; why are they now telling us to go home, if they're gravitating toward more satisfaction as you say?
It really is very simple, just because they didn't like Saddam Hussein does not mean they want a foreign army in their country.
Why is the Shiite reaction so similar to their reaction to the British in 1919?
Lebanese Shiites cheered when Israel invaded Lebanon. Then when these soldiers overstayed their welcome they formed themselves into "The Party of God" to get rid of them.
More to the point: supply us with one clear case in which this has motivated a specific terrorist act. We know a fair amount about the 9/11 hijackers.
But also plenty we don't know about these people. Especially given that at least a third of them were using identities stolen from innocent Arabs.
Please, please, look into how the educated Arab world feels about US foreign policy. There are many, many people out there whose desperate desire is to bring secular, democratized states to the Arab world,
In order to have a stable democratic state any such government, its structure, powers and constitution must be decided by people who live there. It simply cannot be done by foreigners or ex-pats who havn't set foot in the country for decades. The best outsiders can do is advise, but this is a job for political historians rather than soldiers.
They do understand the despotic regimes out there -- they seem particularly aware of ones like Egypt, and of the Shah in Iran.
The Shah being especially relevent as a tyrant installed by the US and Britain at the request of the oil industry. Which didn't like the idea of a democratic Iranian government acting in the interests of the Iranian people. The only people in Iran capable of opposing the Shah were the Shiite clerics (Iran having been the home of Shia Islam for several hundred years.)
They're saying things about how US foreign policy is counterproductive.
It rarely appears to be counterproductive towards the corporate lobby who appear to be in the driving seat. Also when it is counterproductive this tends to be long term, long enough that the current US executive can say "we didn't do it".
Notice that is for CRUDE oil.
The US likes to import Middle East crude (unprocessed) oil because it can process it itself (value added). Canada, not being a third-world country, much prefers to do the rifining itself and ship the end product to the US.
This is why you won't see George Bush or any of his set suggest the US make an effort to buy more stable Canadian oil: the oil refiners along the coasts (especially on South-East coast) would go ballistic.
There's more oil in Canada than all of the Middle East combined. Most of it, however, is in the tar sands and expensive to recover (there's still a profit to be made by effecient opperators, but it's not like the Middle East where you just stick a hole in the ground and oil comes rushing out).
Still, even without counting natural gas, Canada is the US's largest fuel supplier. Lets also not forget about hydro-electricity imported into the US from Canada.
725 killed worldwide huh ? and what does www.fbi.gov have to say about annual murder statistics in the US ?........ how does that old saying about putting your own house in order go ?
The thing I liked about Bowling for Columbine was that Moore was willing to be convinced. He started out believing that gun ownership/control is the major issue, but he later becomes convinced that a culture of fear is the main reason for the gun violence in America. If you really believe that the movie is simply advocating gun control, you should probably see it again with a more open mind.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
Ok let's look at the numbers.
Terrorist Attachs:
"The number of terrorist attacks dropped to 199 in 2002 from 355 the previous year. Still, Mr. Powell noted, assaults occurred in every region of the world, claiming 725 lives."
Car Crashes:
"The raw number of people killed in highway crashes last year was up only slightly, from 41,945 in 2000 to 42,116 in 2001" (From www.chase.com)
Hum, maybe we need to look at our priorities! At the end of the day, is lossing all our rights worth saving 725 lives World WIDE! When 42,116 people die each year from people that don't know how to drive!!!
Relaxing border controls via NAFTA was always predicated on the understanding that each country would control things enough that bad things did not come over the border (like terrorists and diseases).
If Canada doesn't hold up its end of the bargain, the US can either ask it to shape up or we all go back to the pre-NAFTA regime. Obviously, speaking is a lot better than treaty withdrawal. The consequences of border inspections and visa requirements are likely to be far more severe for Canada. All those ambulances that dump emergency patients in US border hospitals could no longer rush across the border without delay. People would die in significant quantities.
Let's all not go there. I don't like terrorist deaths nor would I like increased Canadian healthcare mortality.
But it is also my understanding (from the small number of Canadians i know) that we (the people of the United States) aren't particularly welcome in Canada.
;-) Otherwise, welcome to Canada.
I'm a Canadian. When I meet an American who's moved to Canada, I feel like they're about to start brow-beating me, "well, in America we would do it this way," etc. Some Americans I've met who moved to Canada actually claimed that we had too many immigrants!!! That's a good one!
Honestly, Canadians are just uncomfortable with Americans' self-righteousness and willingness to offend other people at otherwise calm and social events, like dinner. Americans who are polite and considerate with others' feelings are generally very well received.
Just remember, everyone is entitled to an opinion (even in Canada), but I'm entitled to be offended if you start insulting French people (my wife is French), and I might make you feel unwelcome. Don't take is personally. Actually... take is personally. If you're a racist, stay where you belong in the U.S.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Canada most certainly did want the Alaskan panhandle. It belonged to Canada. The problem was the US wanted it too.
To be fair, the US thought they had purchased it, but the maps used in the negotiations between Russia and the US were incorrect: the maps predated the treaties in effect at the time. They showed more land belonging to Alaska than was correct.
Theodore Roosevelt threatened to send in Marines if the US claims to Alaska were not met. This after a compromise solution caused the western states to become extremely vocal in their displeasure.
Everytime someone loud says:
" see the fact the many Australians are also unhappy with our government"
It makes me laugh!
People will always complain, no matter what you do. Those that earn more, bitch about taxes. Those that don't earn much, bitch about how nobody does enough for them.
We have it pretty damn good in this country, and if the best we can manage is a winge like "gee, I don't like that Johnny Howard guy" rather than, "gee, perhaps we should be physically (as in firebombs) overthrowing our government because it kills people in the streets for not doing the right thing, whatever the hell that might be" then we've got nothing to worry about.
There's nothing worse than a vocal minority claiming everyone thinks like them.
It's too early in the piece for me to comment on the Medicare policy, but just like everyone else, I'll cast my vote accordingly.
Ash