Why Not Join Canada?
With all the bad news in the last few posts, it becomes more tempting to look at Canada, as Salon does today:
Part of the reason, too, may be a different rural history. In America's hinterlands, the famous "paranoid style" of politics has been stoked into blazing fear and resentment. But not nearly so much across the Canadian prairies, which historically have given rise to great, empowering cooperative movements. Universal healthcare up here started in Saskatchewan's wheat basket. It's the philosophical cousin to the Wheat Pool co-op and the chicken growers' cartel that makes me pay 10 bucks for a scrawny fryer -- but it keeps the lights on in Moose Jaw.
Whatever the reasons, "the central difference" between Canada and the United States, writes political philosopher Joseph Heath, "is that the majority of Canadians have no ideological opposition to government."
Heath's book "The Efficient Society" is his attempt to explain why, year after year, the U.N. Human Development Index ranks Canada among the tiptop nations on earth to live, well ahead of America in most respects. "We do not love the state, but neither do we fear it. Thus we get all the benefits of a loosely regulated economy while also enjoying the massive improvements in social welfare that can be organized and delivered only by government. This has proven to be a winning formula."
Boring, I know. Except Canada keeps cranking out social experiments way too daring for Americans. Same-sex marriage? Legal in six provinces. Guns? Gotta be licensed and registered. Kyoto? Check. Executing prisoners? No way. School funding? Tying that to local property taxes would be illogical, so poor neighborhoods get the same school funding as rich ones, or more. Cannabis? Canada was the first nation to allow marijuana as medicine, and our Senate says pot should be legal. Heroin? Um, I go by a government-funded safe-injection site on the way to work every day in downtown Vancouver. Soon a trial experiment prescribing the stuff to hardcore addicts will be underway.
Some of those suggestions for new post-election maps are looking more and more tempting:
posted by Ron Chusid at 8:50 PM
7 Comments:
Greetings from beautiful Baja Canada.... fomerly known as California!
Of course we are not leaving. Imagine if we left, leaving the country totally in the hands of those with a red-state mentality. The last thing Canada would need is such an xenophobic, ultra-nationalist, anti-freedom United States to the south. Instead we have to work to reestablish the traditional American values which have made this country what it is.
I don't blame you for not wanting to leave New York. Manhattan is one of my favorite places to visit. Did you see this item post-election, either here or in the NY Times?
http://kerryblog.blogspot.com/2004/11/island-of-sanity.html
If the twins go, he'll have no one left.
Just in. Barbara and Jenna have resigned. They are to be replaced by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.
More on moving to Canada, and related issues:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-canadamove111504nov15,1,7985262.story?coll=orl-living-headlines
Still more on Canada:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10175838.htm?1c
Thanks for the invitation to visit Canada.
Actually, it is not necessary to leave the country to be surrounded by people more likely to share liberal values. We have islands of sanity which we call "cities." :)
Even in the red states, the cities voted for Kerry. The major problem we have is that our laws are ovelry influenced by the values of those in the red states, and visiting Canada won't solve this. Most of us are going to stay and fight for our country.
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