Today on The Current

[james_davis_nicoll]

Diane Francis argues that it would be best for Canada to abandon our health care system, to adopt a native relations system even more brutal than the one we have, and embrace a sky-rocketing Gini Coefficient while inextricably tying ourselves to an unstable nation forever flirting with government shut-down and default.

On balance, I am against this. Their crazification factor outnumbers Canada more than two to one.

She also advocates policies known have contributed to gendercide in China.

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Robin Williams did a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" last week and had some flattering things to say about Canada to a Canadian fan; the line that stuck with me was, "You're like a really nice apartment on top of a meth lab."

-- Steve will say he thinks that's a bit of an overstatement.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Well, it has been nearly 200 years since the White House had its last touch-up...

-- Steve couldn't let this discussion go by without the obligatory "Canadian mentions the burning of Washington" comment.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think the White House got a major make-over in the late 1940s and early 1950s when it was found to be largely structurally unsound.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Except I think there was a controversial addition made to the White House that turned out to be pretty much the only part not falling down.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Was that the reno that installed a swimming pool? (Which is now tiled over; I think it's the press gallery now.)

-- Steve remembers seeing the pool (or a set like it) in "Seven Days in May".

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

According to a report on NPR yesterday, the movie GONE WITH THE WIND is really big in, of all places, North Korea, because the people of NK are very sympathetic to Confederate narrative of Yankee oppression.

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

The problem with the "Let's join the US!" idea is that it assumes a large majority of American politicians would support the idea, which I find questionable. Certainly some percentage would decide it was a bad idea because Canada is too left wing, and others would likely join them when they looked at Canada and decided it was too left wing. It also seems likely that whoever was in government at the time union might occur would worry about the effect of millions of new voters. Especially since some significant fraction of said voters might be pissed off at annexation, and vote in unpredictable ways as a result. Then there'd be things like state governors not wanting even more competition for federal money, ant the pesky problem of Puerto Rican statehood.

[sanskritabelt.livejournal.com]

Also Texas would no longer be even the second-biggest state.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

But there'd be more federal money to compete for. And what does Puerto Rico have to do with it?

Annexing rich white territories that want to join the US is a longstanding tradition. I think "oh god they're to the left of Democrats" would be the only real obstacle. Well, also arguing about whether the provinces came in as states, or whether Canada was one whole state.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Well, if Canada won't annex Maine, they're asking for it.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

It's very puzzling - I have many friends in the US, and they are all very nice people. I don't see how so many odd things can be widespread and common, considering how almost everyone I've met is so kind and considerate.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

The first link is particularly appropriate today.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Overstatement?

Some may argue that one. From both sides of the border.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Did she study under Milton Friedman?

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Watch the series "Canada: A People's History." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27YTTx4mU28 has at least some of it). It's extremely eye-opening for those of us south of the border.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Oh. Wow.

[flails about inarticulately]

[maruad.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Diane Francis one of the big fans of Mulroney and NAFTA?

[eagle]

Answer one: third largest country in the world by population, which provides a lot of room for subgroups of self-sustaining oddity (and worse).

Answer two: the United States is full of cultural narratives and bits of cultural mythology that are at worst harmlessly eccentric on the personal level but which scale into "awful" when applied across the whole country. Libertarianism is an excellent example. It makes very little practical difference whether an individual person you know is a libertarian provided that they're not full-blown objectivists who apply those principles to every social interaction (which is exceptionally rare, even among libertarians). But application of the philosophy at scale quickly becomes toxic.

Basically, the US is full of ideas that don't scale to 320 million people and nonetheless have been scaled that way. Other countries sometimes do better because they lack those principles but, honestly, also sometimes do better because, despite having their own oddities, they've never had to scale those oddities to 320 million people and had them break down in the same way.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Dusting off some Twitter archives:

@Achilles1108 That's key to our World Domination plan; invade when US is overwhelmed with angioplasty patients. #Unstoppable

— aka Steve (@Anton_P_Nym) June 1, 2013

@Achilles1108 Our tanks have air conditioning. (Seriously, they do; had to install it for Afghanistan.)

— aka Steve (@Anton_P_Nym) June 1, 2013

-- Steve has fun with these themes on occasion.

[david wilford (from livejournal.com)]

One thing to consider is that if Canada became part of the U.S., there would no longer be hockey, er, Canadian hockey. That could be a deal-breaker right there.

[bedii.livejournal.com]

Truman ordered a thorough survey during a dinner at the White House when he saw one of the rooms sway. They found out the East Room was held up by goodwill and a couple dozen of extremely rusty nails. During the renovation he ordered that a porch that had been on the original plans but not built be added: the Republicans went nuts and kept pushing the line that Truman wanted it to play the piano on, which is why when the renovation was finished he only visited it once or twice.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I don't GET people.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

54-40 or...oh hell, just annex us already. I welcome our Vancouverian overlords.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, their chances of making the World Cup look brighter.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

It would not surprise me to have that as a the result of a memory-refresher history lesson.