Fredster, you ought to consider a course in tact. Your post is not only filled with inaccuracies, it's filled with not-so-nice inaccuracies.
GGKoul,
Your interest in American politics is wonderful. It's likely much more interesting than the Canadian politics for sure. Not only do Canadians not really care for their politics, neither does anybody else.
Perhaps you should take a look at what percentage of Americans vote in our elections before getting all high-and-mighty with another country. Our voter turn-out is no better than Canada's.
As far as the quote, "As over 30% of Americans think Canadian is south of the US". I have to say that over 60% think Canada has the same business ethics and technical prowess as China, only 3000 miles closer.
Much like the U.S. children in canada can only work on farms, in restaurants, and in home-based businesses. Maybe (or maybe not, for all I know) they import products from countries that use child labor, but the U.S. certainly has no place to be critical there.
You don't have any gun problems because you are barred from having them. You have health care and you pay most of the money you make to take care of that. (We do too, indirectly with insurance premiums. ) You also have to find a doctor that speaks your language in order to get the proper treatment, because the good ones all come to the USA.
They're barred from having handguns and assault weapons. Canadians hunt more than Americans. We also bar many dangerous weapons. We can't buy bazookas, grenades, m-16s, rocket launchers, flame throwers, etc. So their line is in a slightly different place than us. We both have Gun Control.
And by any measure Canada's medical system is better than ours. And cheaper. Whether paid for by taxes or insurance premiums, it costs far less plain and simple. They have a lower mortality rate, infant mortality rate, death caused by medical error. The only bragging rights Americans have for medicine is that we get to pay the most for it. About 10 or 12 countries have us beat everywhere else.
We in the US have what you call an "abortion" issue because some of us still have some moral fibers left. We have degraded to the point we can't understand right and wrong or take a stand on issues.
Don't lump me in with your so called high-morals. God's all-powerful you know. If he needs your help, he'll ask. Pro-life is an immoral position and making abortions illegal is an unworkable solution. And for whoever it was that said that abortions are legal in California and illegal elsewhere, I suggest you take a look at Roe v. Wade. It's illegal for a state to ban abortions.
As far as free speech, you may find that you are not allowed access to all the news outlets the US has. Fox has been "banned" in Canada, etc.
If that's true, well, that's pretty lame. Not that Canadians are missing out on anything, since Fox news is ridiculous and irresponsible and unethical, but...I digress. The censorship is lame.
A 30 day American Boycott of Canada would bring down your entire civilization. You are protected from all sides by the US.
That's absurd. Our Cuban boycot has lasted a little bit more than 30 days and last time I checked Castro is still in power. Canada, obviously, would not want to sever ties with their rich neighbors, but they'd be fine without us. Certainly, with a healthy democracy, freedom of speach and press and a largely capitalistic economic policy they would fare better than Cuba.
America is a superpower that effects the entire world, but you're buying a lot of hogwash and propaganda, my friend. The euro is dominating the dollar, and there is no indication that that will change anytime in the near future. Many of these countries who you think depend on us actually own us (in the same way a bank owns a houseowner until the house is paid off). China and Saudia Arabia are a couple of those countries.
We're also nowhere near as mighty as you like to tell yourself. Look how difficult Iraq is. And this is after a decade of economic sanctions and the country disarming itself. Can you imagine what we would face if we tried even to go into North Korea, let alone China. I'm not even sure we would win a war with China.
I wish people like you would realize that your smugness is based on an extreme faslse sense of security. We HAVE to live in the global community. I wish more people realized how important it is to get along.
I hope Drew doesn't see this post. I give him endless crap for making big wind-bag posts like this.