Ralph Sevush, all around good guy, wrote the following short essay which he calls “The Cultural Divide.” I thought it was an interesting take on the current status of things and decided to close out political blog entries for a bit with it:
Regarding the cultural divide
This morning, I woke up thinking…
… that, as Spalding Gray observed, I live on an island off the coast
of America;
… that we should have just let the south secede when they wanted to;
… that perhaps we could consider a new form of secession, a Northern
secession;
… that if Canada could just give up a strip of land along the northern
border of North Dakota and Montana, we could build a “Freedom Trail”
with an “underground railroad” that connected the northwestern corner of
Minnesota to the northeastern corner of Washington state, thus creating
an independent, contiguous nation consisting of the Northeast, the Great
Lake region, the northern midwest, and the westcoast (plus Hawaii) with
full autonomy from the United States;
… that we could then forge a union with Canada, and become the
Federation of North American States (FONAS);
… that we would then be Fonasians, with access to Canada’s national
health care, with religious and ethnic diversity and tolerance,
relationships with the rest of the world, economic justice, individual
freedoms, and great hockey teams;
… that we would then have a nation composed of the cultural, financial
and industrial centers of the former US, and have Canada as our farmland
and ranch, and still have great vacation spots in the south pacific;
… that we could learn a lesson from Israel and build a massive wall
along our southern border that would separate us from the belligerent,
imperialistic, crypto-Fascist military theocracy that continues to grip
the US government, as it presides over a small-minded citizenry steeped
in religious zealotry who love only their god, themselves, their first
cousins and their sheep, and whose leading export to the world is death;
… that I should just roll over and go back to sleep. Perhaps I’ll
dream of Fonasia, in repose on my island off the coast of America.
But when I wake up, I’ll still be here.
Shìŧ.
Did you ever have one of those mornings?
– by Ralph Sevush, Esq.
(a card-carrying member of the ACLU and the MMMS)
• 
As a Canadian, I can say that Mr. Sevush certainly isn’t the only person to ponder that “wall” idea.
I also agree with not adding fuel to the political fire on this site for a while. Bush and Kerry agreed on one thing yesterday, and that was that your nation needs to heal. We can doubt the sincerity of either one of them all we like, but that doesn’t make the initial sentiment any less correct.
I sincerely hope that all of our neighbours to the south can find at least some common ground, and that the “two Americas” can become one again.
That would make it easier to figure out who to carry on our Canadian love/hate relationship with.
The last thing that gave the vast majority of us common ground was September 11th. If that’s the price, I’ll stick with contention and devisiveness, thank you.
Heh.
The author wishes to move to canada in the name of tolerance, then refers to those who merely vote differently than he does as
“…the belligerent,
imperialistic, crypto-Fascist military theocracy that continues to grip
the US government, as it presides over a small-minded citizenry steeped
in religious zealotry who love only their god, themselves, their first
cousins and their sheep, and whose leading export to the world is death.”
And it’s the red states they call ignorant, bigoted and intolerant. Go figure.
“The last thing that gave the vast majority of us common ground was September 11th. If that’s the price, I’ll stick with contention and devisiveness, thank you.”
Agreed.
I am truly shocked by how much distain the Blue stater’s have for the Reds. And how simplistic their arguments are. As someone who was enraged that I was expected to vote for one of these below-average politicians (talk about dámņìņg with a faint insult) I feel free to make this observation – Y’all, blues and reds alike, are intolerant and moralistic. Reasonable and intellgent people can have diametrically opposed views on Iraq, taxes, health care, abortion, supreme court justices, and so forth. If these issues were simple, we wouldn’t be split 50/50 on them. And, although I usally lean left on those issues, in my experience the Reds are a hëll of a lot more sympathetic to the Blue view, than vice versa. Red intolerance of gays certainly drove a lot of Red votes, but Blue intolerance of Reds drove a lot more.
BTW, to the ‘succession’ dream. Here’s a nice map showing the Red/Purple/Blue continuum by county. The USA is a lot more complicated than the Blues like to admit.
Hmmm…the link didn’t work.
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/purple_america_2004.gif
Well, that’s an amazingly ignorant little piece. Mr. David, I’m surprised that someone as intelligent as yourself finds this amusing. Definately the most ignorant thing I’ve read since the election. On par with the Mirror headline.
Keepers of tolerance. Feh.
People keep pointing to these exit polls about “values”. Did it occur to anyone that these same exit polls also point to a double-digit Kerry win? There’s a lot more going on here than gay-bashing. Most of the states Bush won didn’t have a gay marriage item on the ballot. Bush increased his percentage of vote in virtually every state in the Union, not just the red states.
The Left is trying to paint the 51% of Bush voters as either rich or stupid and Bible-thumping. Guess what, there’s others in that 51% who are middle-class who don’t worry so much about the DMA, but much more about terrorism – and Bush appeared much more willing to face it head-on then Kerry. Maybe when the Left gets through their grief and rage they’ll start to get it.
I’d say more than 51% of the Bush voters are either rich and/or stupid. Bible-thumping, I’m not so ure about…
My hope is that the Republicans get drunk on their own power, try to pass to much radical legislation to fast, and the party self destructs. Bush only won by 2% of the popular vote. If they truly think that they have a mandate then they will screw them selves over. The Republicans have become the party of big government and fiscal irresponsibility. That
Reasonable and intellgent people can have diametrically opposed views on Iraq, taxes, health care, abortion, supreme court justices, and so forth. If these issues were simple, we wouldn’t be split 50/50 on them.
OK, the above was a quote, I’m not sure how to tag it since I can’t get the preview button to work properly and I seldom post here.
SOME of those issues are complex like Iraq and the economy, etc. Everyone would be able to agree to a decent compromise if one were proposed. ONE side of the issue won the election, and therefore it feels no need to compromise with the losers. The same would’ve happened had the election gone the other way.
The only issues that most are completely unwilling to compromise on are their morals. Neither side is willing to give. These are not complex issues. One either believes one side or the other. The only real compromise would be tolerance of everyone, and that’s not really a compromise since that’s basically what the liberals want. No one wants/expects conservatives to suddenly say “you know what maybe being gay isn’t a choice.” They could say “Aw…do whatever you want, we don’t care anymore.” This would be amazing as most liberals would be more than happy with a live and let live type society. It’s ok for you to disagree with me, but don’t make laws restricting my rights. One side wants freedom and choice for all (even for the conservatives that they don’t agree with). The other side wants to restrict those freedoms because they are completely sure that they are right, and no one should disagree with them. This line of thinking is much more dangerous because lots of people disagree with them.
I am truly shocked by how much distain the Blue stater’s have for the Reds.
I prefer Green myself, but what the hëll.
But hey, if you want Georgia, you can have it. Just be prepared to uproot Atlanta and move it somewhere else, cause based on the votes, that city doesn’t want to be part of a Red state.
“I am truly shocked by how much distain the Blue stater’s have for the Reds.”
We learned it from watching you!!!
In the Clinton years that is. 🙂
There are just a lot of Jim’s here i know, but i’m just adding to the bunch…
About gay marriage.
If we allow a very small minority, the gay community, to dictate how their deviant behavior is treated, whats to stop other groups from trying the same behavior?
Now i have nothing against gays, and really, nothing against civil unions, but gay relationships shouldn’t be treated as equal to marriage if thats not what the majority wants. Society dictates what is right and wrong in our culture, and right now, the majority of society says that gay marriage is not right, and shouldn’t be. If gays can get gay marriage legitimized, what is to stop another fringe group, like NAMBLA or polygamists, from rising in popularity and influence and fighting for marriage rights?
Now right now, most of you are probably opposed to men sleeping with little boys, or marrying 10 women, our culture is against it. But with time, and continued moral decline, and the passage of things like gay marriage, eventually it’ll be fine to sleep with little boys, animals, or marry as many as you want at once.
America, and other countries, legislate morality all the time, like the polygamy example and NAMBLA example, as well as drugs and alcohol, and mebbe you disagree with the government stepping in at all, then you are a liberatarian, and i doubt most of you here are. But if you believe that the government can restrict drug use, and stop sex with little children, and animals, and stop polygamy, then you should also accept that it is not innappropriate for the government to legislate against allowing gays to marry.
You may disagree, but currently, you seem to be in the minority, like polygamists were and drug users are, and the government, and the majority of the public and society can legislate against your position.
Society dictates what is right and wrong in our culture,
oh, like how society dictated that slavery was okay, that women were second-class citizens with no rights, or that interracial marriage was a Very Bad Thing?
Kathy Maddux Pearlman wrote I’d say more than 51% of the Bush voters are either rich and/or stupid. Bible-thumping, I’m not so ure about…
Wait, I thought the Republicans are supposed to be the party of irrational intolerance and pathetic stereotypes? We need to work hard to catch up with her. On the bright side we have four years to refine our art.
But if you believe that the government can restrict drug use, and stop sex with little children, and animals, and stop polygamy, then you should also accept that it is not innappropriate for the government to legislate against allowing gays to marry.
Actually, I don’t.
But go on ahead, trying to tell me how to think. That totalitarian impulse you and the rest of your cronies like Stalin and Mao is going to get you in trouble one of these days.
>
Here’s a tip. When you call it “deviant behavior” a lot of us on the left tend to tune you out. I’ve yet to hear an argument against gay marriage that doesn’t basically come down to “My God says it’s wrong!” (which is simplistic and inaccurate) or “It’ll destroy the institution of marriage!) (which I also highly doubt). Nobody’s been able to say “It’s the right thing to do, because it doesn’t discriminate against anyone” which is what those of us in the pro-gay marriage camp can say about our position.
Btw, I am dismayed to count myself as one of the left. Before this election, I considered myself a moderate. But it’s been clearly shown by the votes this year that you’re on one side or another of this little culture war, and I guess I’ll pick the side that doesn’t give to the rich with one hand, pick away at the division between church and state with the other (something that makes us atheists nervous, understand?) and in between, spends its time discriminating against people who just want to live their lives and love who they want.
But really, I’m just venting here. You guys on the right have won. You control every facet of the government, no checks, no balances. I’m not entirely sure why you’re still arguing with the rest of us, when it’s clear that our opinions don’t count for squat.
“This would be amazing as most liberals would be more than happy with a live and let live type society.”
Not all of the ones at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, judging from the number of cars with Bush/Cheney bumper stickers that got keyed. (But of course, both sides have crazies).
As I’ve said before, conservatives should be willing to cut Kerry supporters some slack, though I hope to God if the shoes had been on the other foot I would not have been as bitter as so many of the posters here have been (And given how low that bar has been set, it would not have been difficult). Moving to Canada? Splitting from the country? Grow up, folks. You will see many many elections in your lifetime. You’ll win some, you’ll lose some. Try to show some class and dignity in either circumstance.
As a counterpoint to all around good guy Ralph, heres an interesting take: http://backseatphilosopher.blogspot.com/2004/11/to-my-fellow-democrats.html
excerpt:
Many Democrats think that our patience and understanding are our weakness. “We don’t know how to fight like the Republicans,” we all told ourselves after Florida 2000. “We have to be more like them: tougher, meaner.” “We have to energize our base more.”
Actually, no. Our error is that we Democrats actually are far less understanding than we think we are. Our version of understanding the other side is to look at them from a psychological point of view while being completely unwilling to take their arguments seriously. “Well, he can’t help himself, he’s a right-wing religious zealot, so of course he’s going to think like that.” “Republicans who never served in war are hypocrites to send young men to die. ” “Republicans are homophobes, probably because they can’t deal with their secret desires.” Anything but actually listening and responding to the arguments being made.
And when I say ‘responding,’ I don’t just mean ‘coming up with the best counterargument and pushing it.’ Sometimes responding to an argument means finding the merit in it and possibly changing one’s position. That is part of growth, right?
The Boston Globe today printed up an electoral map based on how the different counties in the country voted. It basically showed the division actually isn’t really between red states and blue states, but between urban and rural. This morning I was watching C-Span in a lead-up to the President’s press conference and I heard disdain on both sides. I don’t think either side can really claim a moral high ground there. I’m guilty of it myself – I don’t UNDERSTAND how these culturual issues could be a factor in this election. And apparently, from watching C-Span, those folks don’t understand how I can’t feel that gay people getting married has ZERO affect on the “sanctity” of my marriage. I’ve been told I should be more tolerance of all this, um, intolerance but that’s hard to wrap my head around, too.
If America becomes a giant version of that town from “Footloose” as a result of all of this I will be genuinely distraught. Kevin Bacon did not give up when the Reverend John Lithgows of the world told him he COULD NOT DANCE and neither will we!!! We’ll take to the streets in our skinny ties and we’ll blast our Quiet Riot tapes and if John Lithgow tries to stop us we’ll do an angry gymnastic dance in an abandoned warehouse and then we’ll START ALL OVER AGAIN. My fellow Americans, let’s hear it for the boy.
Peter,
I find it odd that you would like a piece that basically condescendingly and simplisitically steroetypes huge numbers of people. But let’s have fun with it!
I grew up in Illinois. That is a blue state. I must be enlightened. Lucky me.
And then I went to school in Indiana. Oh no. a red state! Now I am a buffoonish hick.
But I got a Ph.D. in English, moved to New York and taught at an Ivy League university. Oooh. An Ivy League faculty member in a blue state. Definitely enlightened.
But now I’m back in Indiana. So, I’ve become a Bush-loving, bible-thumping hick again.
And I’m an adult who reads comic books, and I’m sure there is a steroetype there, too, and not a nice one. (I’m probably in danger of having my Ph.D. revoked).
What will be interesting is seeing which party is smart enough to figure out the way to ensure victory–don’t run a red or a blue candidate…run a purple. John McCain or Rudy Guliani would have beaten Kerry in a landslide. The Democrats have fewer “purples” to work with, though Obama has terrific potential (I hope they don’t make the mistake they did with Edwards and push him too soon–2 terms as Senator and the guy is gold.)
If the democrats think that Kerry just wasn’t liberal or mean or tough enough, they will lose by a bigger margin next time. If the republicans take this election as an invitation to go ever further to the right they will risk losing it all (after 8 years of Bush it would be a mistake to just offer more of the same–voter fatigue sets in). 2008 will be the first opportunity for a whole new set of faces.
… that we could learn a lesson from Israel and build a massive wall along our southern border that would separate us from the belligerent, imperialistic, crypto-Fascist military theocracy that continues to grip the US government, as it presides over a small-minded citizenry steeped in religious zealotry who love only their god, themselves, their first cousins and their sheep, and whose leading export to the world is death;
I am constantly amazed by the Jefferson Davis clones who want to whine, stamp their little feet, and take their marbles and go home just because they lost an election. I always assumed it was hyperbole, that “I’m going to leave the country if X wins” was the functional equivalent of “If you eat the pumpkin pie before the rest of the family gets here for dinner, you’re dead, young man,” but I’ve seen it enough in the last few days I’m starting to wonder. It is appalling to think that so many people find that the Republic is far less important than disassociating themselves from those nasty Republicans.
To all of you who feel that way: You’re cowards. As John Edwards put it yesterday, “You can be disappointed but you cannot walk away.” If you don’t feel strongly enough about this country to stand and fight, if you don’t care enough to suffer through the bad times that you expect (and that I don’t), then you deserve to lose elections. This nation deserves leaders who are committed to its survival and prosperity, leaders who recognize how unique and amazing it is, and most importantly, leaders who won’t cut and run the instant they find themselves standing out in the cold. So go start your FONAS. I reluctantly have to remind you, however, that the territory of the United States extends from Maine to Florida, over to California, north to Washington, and back east to Maine again, in addition to Alaska and Hawaii. We didn’t let the slave owners and the feudalists wander off with our territory, and we won’t let you do it either. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.
Bill:
>As I’ve said before, conservatives should be willing to cut Kerry supporters some slack, though I hope to God if the shoes had been on the other foot I would not have been as bitter as so many of the posters here have been (And given how low that bar has been set, it would not have been difficult). Moving to Canada? Splitting from the country? Grow up, folks. You will see many many elections in your lifetime. You’ll win some, you’ll lose some. Try to show some class and dignity in either circumstance.
As bitter as “So many”? Weren’t there only one or two posts about splitting or moving?
Fred
I’ve always been a Democrat and just this past election I have noticed how far to the left they have gone. Democrats had certain Liberal views and principles , but now they are the same exact thing and I think that is what’s hurting us. Me, personally, I am pro stem cell research, pro choice , and pro civil union but against gay marriage. Mainly because seeing how agressive the activists at parades have been. I have heard numerous interviews with various people who are angered when parents make their kids leave the parade because they didn’t want to see people with each others hands down their pants..regardless of which sex it is no parents want their children exposed to something so graphic at a young age. It just feels wrong to me to influence children…to possibly make them become somebody they might not have become otherwise. That’s just me..
PAD,
Aside from the extreme liberal slant of the comment, I don’t know anyone who would want Canada’s socialized medicine. My friends from Canada, some of whom live here now, all prefer American health care for the much better quality and for the availability without having to wait months and months for routine procedures.
Dennis
Society dictates what is right and wrong in our culture,
“oh, like how society dictated that slavery was okay, that women were second-class citizens with no rights, or that interracial marriage was a Very Bad Thing?”
(i don’t know how to quote here, sorry)
Yes, at the time, that was acceptable at the time, and it was “right” according to those people. But as time went by, the ideas changed, and eventually, a large enough group decided that slavery was wrong and it was abolished. When a large enough group decides that gay marriage is correct and fine, it’ll happen. Now by your understanding, and my understanding, and almost all now today believe that slavery is wrong, but AT THE TIME it was judged fine by A MAJORITY of society.
In other societies, cannibalism was practiced, and fine, and also eating the hearts of your enemy and other stuff we find atrocious. But in the CONTEXT OF THE TIME AND THE SOCIETY it was fine and good.
Now, since those darker ages, we have progressed, and we have gotten rid of terrible things and injustices, as we’ve evolved to see them as such. But putting slavery and gay marriage next to each other is wrong. Slaves were oppressed and beaten and treated terribly. Not granting gays marriage isn’t oppressing them, its just not treating the word and institution of marriage as joke. I agree that gays can love each other as much as men and women do, and i’m fine with civil unions, no one should be separated from their loved one in a hospital as they die. But it is not marriage, marriage is between a man and a woman. And the tax breaks given to married couples are largely because of the fact that married couples make better parents and can bring up children better, according to conventional wisdom, and some psychologists. And mebbe you disagree with this, but the fact remains that nature, or God if thats your thing, made men and women procreate together, and that is what should be taught to children, not that every and any lifechoice can be the right one. There is evidence that children of gays are more likely to turn out gay themselves, or to experiment more, and if that doesn’t demonstrate that upbringing has some effect over sexual orientation, i don’t know what would.
Sorry i rambled some, and i’m sorry if i offend, but you have to think outside the box a bit. We, as a society, define and redefine evil, and wrong, and right, all the time. If the majority tries to put this in writing, thats not much more of a step, and its not one that hasn’t been done before.
And again, every one who is for gay marriage, why not drop all statuatory rape laws, and allow marriage at 12 or 10 or 5, for those NAMBLA members out there. Its really not much different, you just gotta think about it, and i know most don’t want to.
***”I am truly shocked by how much distain the Blue stater’s have for the Reds.”
We learned it from watching you!!!
In the Clinton years that is. :)****
Nail on the head. The righties spent the Clinton years listening to Flush Limbaugh demonize liberals, and now they wonder why the other side does the same to them.
***Actually, no. Our error is that we Democrats actually are far less understanding than we think we are***
I guess the catch-22 of being a liberal is being intolarant of the intolerant.
Jim wrote:
“Definately the most ignorant thing I’ve read since the election. On par with the Mirror headline.”
The Daily Mirror in Merry Olde England. Ah, yes, I remember it well. Now THERE is a bastion of journalistic integrity if I ever saw one. You’re sure to get all the facts in that rag — not! The only things it’s known for besides its screaming headlines is its famous “Page 3 Girl” pin-up photos.
Fred,
Sorry, my post wasn’t at all clear–the part about splitting from the country and all was referring to the Ralph Sevush column.
And anyway, the more I think about it, I can respect those who would actually be willing to go through the incredible trouble of emigrating–it’s not just talking the talk, it’s walking the walk. It think it is unnecessary and a mistake, but I can respect it. I hope that anyone seriously contemplating it will reconsider.
The ones who just want to moan about how everyone who disagrees with them is just too stupid to see the truth that they, the enlightened ones, offer…well, “grow up” still stands.
Actually, if we are going to have any secession, Hawaii should go first, as there is already a significant secessionist sentiment there, as I understand it, among the natives. If you ever want a story of underhanded, deceptive, scandalous political manipulations, read the story of Hawaii’s annexation into the United States. If we left the Union, I expect Hawaii would go its own way, and rightfully so.
Of course, this is completely an Otherworlds story we’re making up, so it really makes no difference.
This nation deserves leaders who are committed to its survival and prosperity, leaders who recognize how unique and amazing it is, and most importantly, leaders who won’t cut and run the instant they find themselves standing out in the cold.
Well, maybe the Republicans need to own up to the fact that they offered up as crappy a leader as the Democrats have.
And that’s part of the issue: many people voted against Bush knowing that Kerry was crappy, but Bush was wearing a toilet seat on his face, waiting for you to sit down.
Going back to the urban vs rual thing. On another forum, somebody posted comparison maps of the counties across the US for 2000 and 2004 (those counted so far).
And the results are amazingly similar – we’re talking probably better than 80% of the counties in the country went to the same party as in 2000.
But those counties for the Dems – alot of it is the urban areas. The opposite for Bush.
Either way, I think religion still has alot to do with it.
OK–I didn’t really want to argue specific topics or anything. I just wanted to state my opinion and try to gain some sense of closure after the election so that y’know “the healing process can begin.” But, several posters in this thread have mentioned that they are against gay marriage. Why? What possible threat is this to you? That is the fundamental difference. If a libereal is opposed to homosexuality, he doesn’t marry a man. If a conservative disapproves, he changes the constitution. In Ohio, (say what you may, but at least we made it interesting) we passed by an overwhelming majority an amendment to our constitution prohibiting gay marriage. Just a few months ago in March, we passed a law against gay marriage. Isn’t this a little bit much considering it was never legal in the first place? This was only an issue because the president could rally up a few extra votes from those Americans that are scared of change. Hopefully, one issue voters are few and far between, but I can’t really fault a person for voting the way that their church tells them to. If I were religious and didn’t follow politics, I would be willing to blindly follow my religion to either side. That’s what religion is all about, right? Having faith reguardless of the facts or in spite of them? So my question for everyone opposed to gay marriage is simply why? Explain to me the threat this holds for the country without using religion as a justification for anything. Remember this isn’t a theocracy (although if we let the American people vote on it, it probably would be.)
Dennis Donohoe wrote…
I don’t know anyone who would want Canada’s socialized medicine. My friends from Canada, some of whom live here now, all prefer American health care for the much better quality and for the availability without having to wait months and months for routine procedures.
Your friends are in the minority. Our health care system is one of the nation’s most cherished institutions. Granted it’s far from perfect, but in our own national election earlier this year the mere suggestion that one of the parties might work towards privatizing health care contributed a lot to that party underperforming significantly in the election.
I just thought I’d toss this out for people to answer as they see fit.
Do you think that issues such as the ones you’re currently facing in America could be avoided by the implementation of a true multi-party system?
It seems to me that there is a great split in your country, and it’s mostly between the far-right and far-left. What are the people in the middle to do?
To Jim Farrand:
Gay marriage is not the same thing as sex with a minor. One involves consent, the other doesn’t. And before you make the argument that adjusting the definition of marriage and adjusting the age of consent are similar notions, please keep in mind: everybody eventually turns 18, but gay people do not eventually turn straight.
Jeff Lawson posted:
“Your friends are in the minority. Our health care system is one of the nation’s most cherished institutions. Granted it’s far from perfect, but in our own national election earlier this year the mere suggestion that one of the parties might work towards privatizing health care contributed a lot to that party underperforming significantly in the election.”
My comment: I certainly can understand people balking at having to pay for something (privatizing) that was once free. I’d have the same reaction. However, that doesn’t really address my comment that US (non-socialized) health care, despite its cost, is much better. But I have no firsthand experience, since I’m not Canadian, so I’ll defer on this.
Dennis
“Reverend John Lithgows of the world told him he COULD NOT DANCE and neither will we!!!”
It’s been a while since I’ve seen that movie, but didn’t Kevin Bacon’s character solve the problem by holding a dance beyond the town’s borders?
So basically the muttonheads in the town said, “No dancing in the town!” and, at the end of the film, bsaically, they got their way. Ignorance prevailed, and the young dancing guys had to go elsewhere.
PAD
Dennis Donohoe said…
However, that doesn’t really address my comment that US (non-socialized) health care, despite its cost, is much better. But I have no firsthand experience, since I’m not Canadian, so I’ll defer on this.
And I’m not American, and have never had to use your health-care system, so I suppose that makes us even =)
It all comes down to opinion, I suppose. In my opinion, and that of (I believe) the vast majority of Canadians, it is better to have a universal system where people have equal access to health care no matter their age, race, or social class, than to have a system where the highest-quality treatment is reserved for the wealthy.
Now, health care is always one of the top Canadian concerns, and there is no shortage of problems with our current systems. Waiting lists can sometimes be massive, and there tend to be shortages of doctors, due in no small part to the fact that they can be making far more money in America. Canada is still trying to get a handle on these problems, and I’m sure they’ll be big issues here for years to come.
But the bottom line is, most Canadians would rather struggle with these problems than with the problems presented by American-style health care.
Dennis,
I’m a Canadian currently living in the States and I have experienced no increase in the quality of health care down here. The waits are just as long in emergency rooms. The difference is down here you pay an arm and a leg for it. The doctors aren’t particularly better trained. If I’m going to be made to wait anyway… I’d prefer it was free.
I really miss feeling a little under the weather and stopping in to a clinic for a check-up just to find out whats going on.
Someone said “America doesn’t have healthcare. We have sick-care” and I think that’s a fairly accurate depiction.
So count this as one Canadian who has sampled both and misses socialized medicine.
Mike.
Jeff said:
“It all comes down to opinion, I suppose. In my opinion, and that of (I believe) the vast majority of Canadians, it is better to have a universal system where people have equal access to health care no matter their age, race, or social class, than to have a system where the highest-quality treatment is reserved for the wealthy”
I have no argument with Jeff or with the subsequent posting by Mike, except that I am nowhere near wealthy and I have received high quality health care for some serious problems. But hey, this posting was supposed to be about politics, and frankly I am no expert on health care outside of my own situation.
Regards,
Dennis
Dennis Donohoe wrote…
I have no argument with Jeff or with the subsequent posting by Mike
Me neither, just presenting the other side of the coin. Isn’t civilized discussion fun? =D
Re: Canadian healthcare “waiting months for routine procedures”…just try getiing any medical procedure done, of any kind, even just a check-up if you don’t have health insurance. If you’re lucky and can find a clinic somewhere to treat you, you’ll be seeing Frank Burns from M*A*S*H and Dr Nick Riviera from The Simpsons- “Hi Everybody”
I have no problem with colored people. I don’t care what they do in their own place, as long as they leave me and my friends alone and understand that they had better stay away from me and mine.
Oh.
Wait.
You were talking about *Gay* people.
Okay. Just change the word ‘colored’ to ‘gay’. Same argument, just a different word.
So many people in this country try to use words to cover up the fact that they are bigots.
Jim, the fact that you compare Homosexuality to Nambla is a situation I find disturbing, because you seem to link homesexuality with pedophilia. Which is an unfair view. Are there those in the homosexual community who have a prediliction for young partners? sure. But I doubt it it disproportionate to the heterosexual world. The prevalence of magazines like barely legal. The imagery of early Britney Spears. The whole count down to the Olsen twins 18th birthday. You think if the legal age was 16 instead of 18 the magazines and such wouldn’t be photographing as many girls as close to their 16th birthday as they can as opposed 18 or when they might be fully developed? Of course not. So does that mean any guy who buys one of these magazines wants to have sex with a 6 year old? No of course not. The links you imply suggest that gay men see no difference between a 25 year old adult, and a 13 year old boy. Which is ignorant. Please tell me how there is no real difference between Gay marriage and dropping statuory rape laws.
Is Gay marriage the Marijuana of ‘deviant sexual behaviour’? A gateway perversion?
Anything governing sexual morality is fairly simple. Does any party in the act have the choice, ability and opportunity to refuse? If they do refuse is that choice respected? Does one party hold a position of power that would signifgantly affect the ability to say no?
Do all paries have the intellectual and emotional maturity to understand the situation? This is a tough one. There are those at 16 who can handle adult relationships there are those at 25 who can’t. It’s like driving a car. not all 16 year olds are ready to drive, but you can’t do it case by case.
Pick an age where you hope mental maturity matches phsyical.
I’m digressing
but the fact remains that nature, or God if thats your thing, made men and women procreate together,. That is a fact yes. and that is what should be taught to children, as part of basic biology sure. not that every and any lifechoice can be the right one Now you lost me. I do think there are some “lifechoices” such as say mass muderer or serial rapist that are in no way shape or form valid. But to say that ony one is? You’re not really saying not every and any can the right one you’re saying there is one right choice, and all others are wrong. I freely admit I do not understand where you are coming from. If the queer eye guys aren’t having sex with you, does it really matter if they have sex with each other?
you say nature or God made it so men and women procreate, well judging by most statements Nature or God mad a certain amout of the population gay. Or as I believe god or nature made everyone bisexual to some degree. (Zero is a degree) As per your evidence that children in a house with to gay parents are more likely to be gay..(even if i were to buy that which i don’t) That can probably be attributed to the fact thy are more open to possibiliies of any inherant bisexuality.
But putting slavery and gay marriage next to each other is wrong. Slaves were oppressed and beaten and treated terribly. Slaves were oppressed and beaten and treated terribly. Matthew sheppard.
In other societies, cannibalism was practiced, and fine, and also eating the hearts of your enemy and other stuff we find atrocious. But in the CONTEXT OF THE TIME AND THE SOCIETY it was fine and good.
That still doesn’t make it right. You can look at where they’re coming from, the reasons for why they believe what they believe, and accept for them it makes perfect sense. It doesn’t mean they were right, or they should have believed. It was wrong for people to believe it was okay to enslave blacks. It was wrong for men to treat women like they were second class citizens. It is wrong to believe that the differences between someone else and you makes them less of a human being than you. it is wrong to believe that the love between two men or two women is less than the love between a man and a woman..
Sorry Pad I think I’m getting carried away, so I’ll sttop here/
I meant to hit preview insted of post. I do apologise for all the grammatical and spelling errors.
Secession is impossible because, aside from 2 or 3 states near Maine, most states are “red”.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm
USA Today yesterday or the day before yesterday (hmm, possible movie title there) broke down the votes to a county by county election map and it’s surprising and illuminating. When you break down the votes by county instead of state, you see the overwhelming majority of counties voted for Bush–even in “blue” states.
Put another way, many of the “blues” were asking on September 12, 2001:
WHY DO THEY HATE US?
About terrorists or people from other countries yet refuse to seek similar understanding about people from the same country, the “reds”.
— Ken from Chicago
> The Daily Mirror in Merry Olde England. Ah, yes, I remember it well. Now THERE is a bastion of journalistic integrity if I ever saw one. You’re sure to get all the facts in that rag — not! The only things it’s known for besides its screaming headlines is its famous “Page 3 Girl” pin-up photos.
“Page 3″‘s from Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun, actually.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5055695-111675,00.html
Onward Christian soldiers
The hopefuls in the Democrat camp really believed victory in the US election was within their grasp. How did they get it so wrong? They failed to appreciate, says Simon Schama, that their country is now in fact two nations that loathe and fear each other – Godly and Worldly America
Simon Schama
Friday November 5, 2004
The Guardian
In the wee small hours of November 3 2004, a new country appeared on the map of the modern world: the DSA, the Divided States of America. Oh yes, I know, the obligatory pieties about “healing” have begun; not least from the lips of the noble Loser. This is music to the ears of the Victor of course, who wants nothing better than for us all to Come Together, a position otherwise known as unconditional surrender. Please, fellow curmudgeons and last ditchers, can someone on the losing side just for once not roll over and fall into a warm bath of patriotic platitudes at such moments, but toot the flute of battle instead; yell and holler and snarl just a wee bit? I don’t want to heal the wound, I want to scratch the dámņëd thing until it hurts and bleeds – and then maybe we’ll have what it takes to get up from the mat. Do we think the far-right Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, in the ashy dawn of his annihilation in 1964, wanted to share? Don’t think so. He wanted to win; sometime. And now, by God, he has.
“We are one nation,” the newborn star of Democrats, Senator-elect Barack Obama, exclaimed, even as every salient fact of political life belied him. Well might he invoke Lincoln, for not since the Civil war has the fault line between its two halves been so glaringly clear, nor the chasm between its two cultures so starkly unbridgeable. Even territorially (with the exception of Florida, its peninsular finger pointing expectantly at tottering Cuba), the two Americas are topographically coherent and almost contiguous. One of those Americas is a perimeter, lying on the oceans or athwart the fuzzy boundary with the Canadian lakes, and is necessarily porous and outward-looking. The other America, whether montagnard or prairie, is solidly continental and landlocked, its tap roots of obstinate self-belief buried deep beneath the bluegrass and the high corn. It is time we called those two Americas something other than Republican and Democrat, for their mutual alienation and unforgiving contempt is closer to Sunni and Shia, or (in Indian terms) Muslim and Hindu. How about, then, Godly America and Worldly America?
Worldly America, which of course John Kerry won by a massive landslide, faces, well, the world on its Pacific and Atlantic coasts and freely engages, commercially and culturally, with Asia and Europe in the easy understanding that those continents are a dynamic synthesis of ancient cultures and modern social and economic practices. This truism is unthreatening to Worldly America, not least because so many of its people, in the crowded cities, are themselves products of the old-new ways of Korea, Japan, Ireland or Italy. In Worldly America – in San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego, New York – the foreigner is not an anxiety, but rather a necessity. Its America is polycultural, not Pollyanna.
Godly America, on the other hand, rock-ribbed in Ðìçk Cheney’s Wyoming, stretched out just as far as it pleases in Dubya’s deeply drilled Texas, turns its back on that dangerous, promiscuous, impure world and proclaims to high heaven the indestructible endurance of the American Difference. If Worldly America is, beyond anything else, a city, a street, and a port, Godly America is, at its heart (the organ whose bidding invariably determines its votes over the cooler instructions of the head), a church, a farm and a barracks; places that are walled, fenced and consecrated. Worldly America is about finding civil ways to share crowded space, from a metro-bus to the planet; Godly America is about making over space in its image. One America makes room, the other America muscles in.
Worldly America is pragmatic, practical, rational and sceptical. In California it passed Proposition 71, funding embryonic stem cell research beyond the restrictions imposed by Bush’s federal policy. Godly America is mythic, messianic, conversionary, given to acts of public witness, hence the need – in Utah and Montana and a handful of other states – to poll the voters on amendments to their state constitution defining marriage as a union between the opposite sexes. But then Worldly America is said to feed the carnal vanities; Godly America banishes and punishes them. From time to time Godly America will descend on the fleshpots of Worldly America, from Gotham (it had its citadel-like Convention there after all) to Californication, will shop for T-shirts, take a sniff at the local pagans and then return to base-camp more convinced than ever that a time of Redemption and Repentance must be at hand. But if the stiff-necked transgressors cannot be persuaded, they can be cowed and conquered.
No wonder so many of us got the election so fabulously wrong even into the early hours of Tuesday evening, when the exit polls were apparently giving John Kerry a two- or three-point lead in both Florida and Ohio. For most of us purblind writers spend our days in Worldly America and think that Godly America is some sort of quaint anachronism, doomed to atrophy and disappear as the hypermodernity of the cyber age overtakes it, in whatever fastness of Kentucky or Montana it might still circle its wagons. The shock for the Worldlies is to discover that Godly America is its modernity; that so far from it withering before the advance of the blog and the zipdrive, it is actually empowered by them. The tenacity with which Godly America insists the theory of evolution is just that – a theory – with no more validity than Creationism, or that Iraqis did, in fact, bring down the twin towers, is not in any way challenged by the digital pathways of the information age. In fact, such articles of faith are expedited and reinforced by them. Holy bloggers bloviate, Pentecostalists ornament their website with a nimbus of trembling electronic radiance and, for all I know, you can download Pastor John Ashcroft singing the Praises of the Lord right to your Godpod.
Nor, it transpires, is the exercise of the franchise a sure-fire way for the Democrats to prevail. The received wisdom in these Worldly parts (subscribed to by yours truly; mea culpa) was that a massively higher turn out would necessarily favour Kerry. P Diddy’s “Vote or Die” campaign was credited with getting out young voters en masse who ignored the polls in 2000. We saw a lot of Springsteen and Bon Jovi and ecstatic upturned faces. Who could possibly match their mobilisation, we thought? Answer: Jehovah and his Faithful Servant St Karl the Rove. The biggest story of all in 2004 is the astounding success of the Republicans in shipping millions of white evangelicals to the polls who had also stayed at home four years earlier. We thought we were fired up with righteous indignation – against the deceits of the propaganda campaign for the Iraq war, against the gross inequities of the tax cuts – but our fire was just hot air compared to the jihad launched by the Godlies against the infamy of a tax rollback, of merely presuming to diss the Dear Leader in a time of war. And the battalions of Christian soldiers made the telling difference in the few critical places where Godly and Worldly America do actually rub shoulders (or at least share a state), Ohio above all.
By the lights of the psephology manuals, Ohio ought to have been a natural for the Democrats: ageing industrial cities such as Akron and Dayton, with big concentrations of minorities, suffering prolonged economic pain from out sourced industries. Cleveland and Cincinnati are classic cities of the Worldly plain: half-decayed, incompletely revived; great art museums, a rock’n’roll hall of fame, a terrific symphony orchestra. But drive a bit and you’re in deep Zion, where the Holsteins graze by billboards urging the sinful to return to the bosom of the Almighty, the church of Friday night high school football shouts its hosannas at the touchdowns, and Support Our Troops signs grow as thick as the rutabaga. At first sight there’s not much distance between this world and western Pennsylvania, but were the state line to be marked in 20ft-high electrified fences the frontier between the two Americas couldn’t be sharper. The voters of the “Buckeye State” cities did care about their jobs; they did listen when Kerry told them the rich had done disproportionately nicely from Bush’s tax cut. But they were also listening when their preachers (both black and white) fulminated against the uncleanliness of Sodom and the murder of the unborn. In the end, those whose most serious anxieties were the state of the economy and the Mess-o-potamia were outvoted by those who told exit pollers their greatest concern in 2004 was “moral values”.
Faith-driven politics may even have had a hand in delivering Florida to Bush by a surprising margin, since it seems possible that Jewish voters there who voted for “my son the vice-president” Joe Lieberman (not to mention Hadassah, oy what nachas) in 2000, actually switched sides as a result of the president’s support for Ariel Sharon. It wasn’t that the Kerry campaign didn’t notice the confessional effect. It was just that they didn’t know what to do about it. Making the candidate over as some sort of altar boy (notwithstanding directives from Rome instructing the faithful on the abhorrence of his position on abortion) would have been about as persuasive as kitting him out with gun, camouflage and dead Canada geese; a laboriously transparent exercise in dámņìņg insincerity.
In Godly America the politics of impassioned conviction inevitably trumped the politics of logical argument. On CNN a fuming James Carville wondered out loud how a candidate declared by the voting public to have decisively won at least two of the three televised debates could have still been defeated. But the “victory” in those debates was one of body language rather than reasoned discourse. It registered more deeply with the public that the president looked hunched and peevish than that he had been called by Kerry on the irrelevance of the war in Iraq to the threat of terror. And since the insight was one of appearance not essence, it could just as easily be replaced by countless photo-ops of the president restored to soundbite affability. The charge that Bush and his second war had actually made America less, not more safe, and had created, not flushed out, nests of terror, simply failed to register with the majority of those who put that issue at the top of their concerns.
Why? Because, the president had “acted”, meaning he had killed at least some Middle Eastern bad dudes in response to 9/11. That they might be the wrong ones, in the wrong place – as Kerry said over and over – was simply too complicated a truth to master. Forget the quiz in political geography, the electorate was saying (for the popular commitment to altruistic democratic reconstruction on the Tigris is, whatever the White House orthodoxy, less than Wolfowitzian), it’s all sand and towelheads anyway, right? Just smash “them” (as one ardent Bush supporter put it on talk radio the other morning) “like a ripe cantaloupe”. Who them? Who gives a šhìŧ? Just make the testosterone tingle all the way to the polls. Thus it was that the war veteran found himself demonised as vacillating compromiser, the Osama Candidate, while a pair of draft-dodgers who had sacrificed more than eleven hundred young men and women to a quixotic levantine makeover, and one which I prophesy will be ignominiously wound up by next summer (the isolationists in the administration having routed the neocons), got off scot free, lionised as the Fathers of Our Troops.
Well, the autumn leaves have, just this week, fallen from the trees up here in the Hudson Valley and the scales from the eyes of us deluded worldlies. If there is to be any sort of serious political future for the Democrats, they have to do far more than merely trade on the shortcomings of the incumbents – and there will be opportunities galore in the witching years ahead (a military mire, a fiscal China syndrome and, hullo, right before inauguration, a visit from al-Qaida). The real challenge is to voice an alternative social gospel to the political liturgy of the Godlies; one that redefines patriotism as an American community, not just a collection of wealth-seeking individuals; one that refuses to play a zero-sum game between freedom and justice; one in which, as the last populist president put it just a week ago, thought and hope are not mutually exclusive. You want moral values? So do we, but let them come from the street, not the pulpit. And if a fresh beginning must be made – and it must – let it not begin with a healing, but with a fight.