I moved from Alberta to Dallas. I definitely paid more taxes in Alberta than in Texas and I never even met a fundamentalist christian while growing up there. The mormons have a couple of large churchs in southern AB but that's it. In Dallas there are many mega churches and alot of the people I meet, including IT workers, are very involved in thier church community.
I'm stunned it took this long for the great Healthcare debate to start. I see from the replies that the wild generalizations and anecdotal evidence bashing have flowing. My two cents is this:
If my grandmother had lived in the US she might not be laid up in a hospital waiting to die from cancer due to problems with the great Canadian healthcare system. Her doctor of 10 years moved to the US and she saw a very green doctor who missed the cancer growth which caused here arm to break and spread throughout her body before she could get in to see a specialist to get a second opinion almost 2 months later.
No one on slashdot is a policy maker in either the US or Canada so all that really makes a difference in our lives is anecdotal evidence. I wish other Canadians would stop jumping to the defence of an obviuosly broken system by pointing at the US and yelling they're worse. We do the same thing with racism, class division and every other social problem there is. The fact is that if your are above the poverty line there is very little that is differnet between life in Canada and in the US. Canada's healthcare system and makes life better for those under the poverty line which is a great thing but it does not give us the social/moral superiority I see in posts on Slashdot and hear from some of my friends back home.
Hallelujah! Holy Shit! Where's the Tylenol?
I moved to Dallas 5 years ago from Calgary and this whole "Don't mess with Texas" thing is more of a marketing slogan than an attitude. On the other hand the idea of Canadian insecurity is very real. Martin Short had a great line on Letterman(?) one night. He said "the difference between Canadians and Americans is that Americans watch TV and Canadians watch American TV". As a Canadian you are accutely aware of what is yours and what is thiers.
The H1-B system should not even be discussed in this case since most Canadians moving to work in the US would use the TN-1 which is ridiculously easy to get and keep getting. I was fresh out of school with no tech experience and had been offered a job in the US. I had a letter from my employer and my degree when I got to US immigration and was rubber stamped into the US. After that I just had to cross the border once per year at either Mexico or Canada with the same letter and degree and I could get extended. There is no draconian system making it difficult to work in the US.
I should have saved some mod points for your post. It makes an excellent point. It illustrates the problem with invoking Nazi Germany as a reference to anything. Comparissons to Hitler and his ilk can be done in rational ways but even if they are worded perfectly someone else can take that comparisson and and twist it until the author comes off as hate filled nut.
Using the Nazi's in any political discussion should always be avoided if possible.
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I moved from Alberta to Dallas. I definitely paid more taxes in Alberta than in Texas and I never even met a fundamentalist christian while growing up there. The mormons have a couple of large churchs in southern AB but that's it. In Dallas there are many mega churches and alot of the people I meet, including IT workers, are very involved in thier church community.
I'm stunned it took this long for the great Healthcare debate to start. I see from the replies that the wild generalizations and anecdotal evidence bashing have flowing. My two cents is this: If my grandmother had lived in the US she might not be laid up in a hospital waiting to die from cancer due to problems with the great Canadian healthcare system. Her doctor of 10 years moved to the US and she saw a very green doctor who missed the cancer growth which caused here arm to break and spread throughout her body before she could get in to see a specialist to get a second opinion almost 2 months later. No one on slashdot is a policy maker in either the US or Canada so all that really makes a difference in our lives is anecdotal evidence. I wish other Canadians would stop jumping to the defence of an obviuosly broken system by pointing at the US and yelling they're worse. We do the same thing with racism, class division and every other social problem there is. The fact is that if your are above the poverty line there is very little that is differnet between life in Canada and in the US. Canada's healthcare system and makes life better for those under the poverty line which is a great thing but it does not give us the social/moral superiority I see in posts on Slashdot and hear from some of my friends back home. Hallelujah! Holy Shit! Where's the Tylenol?
I moved to Dallas 5 years ago from Calgary and this whole "Don't mess with Texas" thing is more of a marketing slogan than an attitude. On the other hand the idea of Canadian insecurity is very real. Martin Short had a great line on Letterman(?) one night. He said "the difference between Canadians and Americans is that Americans watch TV and Canadians watch American TV". As a Canadian you are accutely aware of what is yours and what is thiers.
The H1-B system should not even be discussed in this case since most Canadians moving to work in the US would use the TN-1 which is ridiculously easy to get and keep getting. I was fresh out of school with no tech experience and had been offered a job in the US. I had a letter from my employer and my degree when I got to US immigration and was rubber stamped into the US. After that I just had to cross the border once per year at either Mexico or Canada with the same letter and degree and I could get extended. There is no draconian system making it difficult to work in the US.
This dude is drunk. I moved from Calgary to Dallas 5 years ago and pay way less in taxes now than I did in Canada.
I should have saved some mod points for your post. It makes an excellent point. It illustrates the problem with invoking Nazi Germany as a reference to anything. Comparissons to Hitler and his ilk can be done in rational ways but even if they are worded perfectly someone else can take that comparisson and and twist it until the author comes off as hate filled nut. Using the Nazi's in any political discussion should always be avoided if possible.