@blatham,
blatham wrote:@georgeob et al
Dangnabbit. Somehow, you guys have managed to ferret out that I am a Canadian. I have been covertly hiding that truth throughout my engagements here and earlier at abuzz. Well done, boys and girls. I've seen perspicacity before but this is the cake taker.
Despite your patronizing response, the fact is you have very frequently discussed "our" political challenges and things "we" must do to meet them - all leaving the impression that you are indeed one of us. Whether this was deliberate, or merely careless, is not particularly important, or even interesting. Rather it is your peristence in so earnestly advocating particular issues and so energetically criticizing so many aspects of American life that makes a very reasonable person like (ahem !) myself question your motives and proclivities. A little of this is quite innocuous. You appear to make a nearly full time practice of it, and that alone makes it a bit unusual. I suspect that if our roles were reversed most Canadians would find it offensive as well.
I cannot easily imagine myself dedicating so much time and energy to telling Canadians (or anyone else) how they should arrange their political affairs. In the first place these are their affairs, not mine and I have no proper voice in them. That doesn't mean I don't have any opinions or preferences on such matters, or that they don't have any effect on me or my country. However it does mean that my intrusive commentary ought to be tempered and measured in some rough proportion to exactly those factors. Intellectual discussion of alternatives and the governing principles attending such questions from broad historical, economic or political perspectives is certainly OK, but when the focus is consistently on one country, not one's own, and on one highly partisan perspective having little evident applicability anywhere else, such behavior becomes offensive and indicative of rather strange motivations on the part of one doing it. I certainly find it tiresome.
