Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Threat of Smiling Canadians Part 1

24 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Tales of Canada

≈ Leave a comment

The rule is that Canadians are not supposed to smile.

This is a tad problematic for the typical Canadian, since Canadians have a fondness for smiling.  Don’t get me wrong. Canadians also frown and they do so with the same energy as any other people.  My wife, for example, makes a serious effort to frown at things I say or do at least several times during the week. And then there is my adolescent son.  Somehow he is able to even make his smiles look like frowns.  Nonetheless, this capacity for frowning doesn’t change the fact that Canadians like to smile.

This is clearly evident when you drive across the border from the U.S. into Canada.  When you arrive at the checkpoint, you are greeted with a big welcoming smile.  Sure, Canadian border guards ask the same questions that border guards all over the world ask.  “What’s the purpose of your visit?”  “How long do you plan to stay?”  “Do you have anything to declare?”  “Are you a serial killer escaping justice?”    The difference is that they carry the official inquiry off as if you were long lost friends.

Contrast this with their American counterparts on the other side of the highway.  Unlike the Canadians, American border guards tend to shave their heads. It befuddles the imagination trying to come up with a reasonable explanation for this.  There are only two groups of people that I know of that have a culture of head shaving: those sympathetic to cancer victims and neo-Nazi youth organizations a.k.a. skinheads.  Perhaps the Homeland Security is affiliated with the American Cancer Society. This actually makes sense since devastating illnesses are a national security threat.  If everyone were to get sick, there would be no one to fight the wars.

Another major difference between U.S. and Canadian border guards is that, head shaven or not, the Americans always seem angry.  Not only that, but they are downright mean-spirited.  It doesn’t matter how many times one crosses the border; the American border guards do their best to make you feel like a criminal simply because you want to cross the border into the States.  And I’m an American.  Imagine what it would be like if I weren’t?  Actually, come to think of it, they do give my wife a much harder time of it[1].

I have a friend in Montana who used to hunt regularly in Canada until he became fed up with the rude treatment he received whenever he returned home to the States.  He has an explanation for the attitude of the American border guards.  His theory is that the Americans have a surly temperament because they are pissed off that they got stuck being stationed at the U.S. – Canadian border.  Really, how boring can it get?  You’ll be hard-pressed finding any Canadians trying to sneak illegally into the United States to find work[2].  As everyone knows, the real excitement is at the Mexican border.  It’s the southern border of the U.S. where all of the real action is.  What greater threat to U.S. sovereignty is there than those people, who, unlike the Canadians, aren’t even native English speakers, trying to enter through the Southwest so that they can steal all of those jobs that Americans are clamoring for.  I know how my fellow Americans feel about this situation.  I remember back in high school one summer, some friends and I got jobs picking vegetables on a farm for a couple of weeks.  It was great fun, great pay and great benefits.  Not only that, we got to work on our tans all day as well.  To this day, I’m not sure why we didn’t stick with it.  If we had, we may have become respected and valued members of our communities.  Then again, if we had stuck with it, we would have eventually been squeezed into the unemployment and welfare lines by all of those illegal aliens stealing our jobs.

But this isn’t a discussion about Americans.  Or illegal farm workers.  I want to talk about Canadians.  More specifically, why do Canadians smile?  Usually people smile because they are happy.  But what do Canadians have to be happy about?  They live in a land that is half frozen and filled with dangerous bears and coywolves.  With the possible exception of the First Nation, Canadians live here because nobody wanted their ancestors or their ancestors were tricked into coming.  The French-Canadians in Quebec owe their citizenship in Canada to the King of France.  Though they begged and petitioned him, he refused to allow the return of the French settlers to France after he lost the war to the British.  The Ukrainians, on the other hand, were promised rich farmland.  It wasn’t really a trick.  There was land.  But it was up in Manitoba, a place so desolate that the wildlife leaves every winter[3].

So what could Canadians have to be happy about?

For one thing, Canada has secure borders and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.  Of course, Canadian security is helped to an enormous degree by its close relationship with the United States, which has the most powerful military force on the planet.  Don’t get me wrong.  The Canadian military is hard-working, competent and heroic.  However, that doesn’t alter the fact that Canadians don’t have to spend much of their hard-earned incomes on defense because the Americans apportion a large part of their budget on military spending.

Another happiness factor is that Canada is one of the wealthiest nations on the planet.  Its membership in the G8 is helped along by the fact that Canada is intimately associated with the British Commonwealth and the United States.  Because of their close ties to the U.S., Canadians get the perks of American industry without some of the associated costs.  While the Americans are investing in experiments to bring about improvements in their society, the Canadians kick back and wait.  Once the American have finished, the Canadians will take the lessons learned from the American successes and failures and apply them to their own society.  You can’t say that the Canadians aren’t a clever people.

Also, on any given day, thousands of Canadians cross the border to buy goods at a vastly cheaper rate than they would pay for the same product in Canada.  Nobody really understands why things are significantly less expensive in the States.  For example, why do books cost so much more in Canada.  This is particularly strange given the fact that Canada has very large forests from which to get the wood for the pulp needed to produce paper.  Thus they have more paper to produce books less expensively.  When asked, Canadian politicians always give convoluted answers that don’t make a bit of sense[4].  It does give a little sadistic glee to know that Canadians are afflicted with the same sort of political animals as everyone else is.

A major factor contributing to Canadian happiness is that all Canadians have the same health care as their politicians.  No matter where they work or for whom they work, their health care is covered.  Imagine collapsing at a street corner with a heart attack.  There’s no need to worry about whether you are insured or not.  No need to worry about whether cardiovascular disease is a pre-existing condition or familial trait so, even though you pay the same premiums and have the same deductible as everyone else, it is the one illness that the insurance companies deny you coverage for.

In Canada, all you have to do is lie on the hard concrete in agony and wait for the ambulance to arrive with its more than competent EMTs.  Then you’re off to the hospital where skilled medical professionals will attend to you.  Later, when the physician, rather than an insurance agent, says you have recovered, you’ll be released with a smile rather than a big whopping bill.  Instead of being stressed by a collection agency constantly phoning you about your $25,000 medical bill, you can rest assured that you are still insured for future illness. Really, what isn’t there to be happy about?  You get to avoid bankruptcy and keep your house.

Another thing that Canadians have to be happy about is that they have a government that does what governments are supposed to do.  True, like all governments, the Canadian government has plenty of flaws.  But most importantly, it stays out of its citizens’ personal lives while protecting citizens and their rights from villainous scoundrels.  There are no Wall Street bankers and financiers running amok and destroying the national economy with their unregulated greed.  There are no social conservatives using the government to regulate your bedroom behavior.

The final reason that Canadians have to be happy is that everyone likes Canadians.  What’s there not to like?  Canadians are nice to everyone.  Of course, it’s always the Canadians who seem to get killed in terrorist café bombings in Egypt and Bali.  I’m not sure what that’s about.  It could be that terrorists in Egypt and Bali hold some of the same fallacies as Americans.  Many Americans are under the impression that Canada is nothing more than an unofficial state vaguely north of where they reside.  Just because they’re terrorists, it doesn’t mean that these Egyptians and Balinese are any better at geography than the Americans.

It seems that Canadians have plenty to be happy about.  So why aren’t they supposed to smile?

[1] It’s possible to think of that as simple American retribution for frowning at me.

[2] The ugly truth is that Canadians cross legally into the United States every day and steal the jobs from perfectly capable, hard-working American comedians, actors and musicians.

[3] Another point that can’t be overlooked is that nobody else wanted to live there.

[4] It might be worth considering the fact that Americans love to travel to Third World countries in order to get goods and services more cheaply than they can in the States.

A Small Matter of Religious Freedom

14 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Political Ramblings

≈ 1 Comment

The recent fluttering by Catholic bishops and various other religious conservatives in the United States has generated a cascade of self-doubt in my mind.  These men claim that a recent requirement made by the Federal Government that employers provide healthcare that meets the needs of all of their employees, male and female, Catholic and non-Catholic, at associated, yet non-religious, institutions such as hospitals and universities is a violation of the First Amendment.

Since then, the airwaves and newspapers have been inundated by the clamoring of theologians, religious leaders, lawyers, politicians and political pundits of questionable punditry.  I’m not going to comment upon the fact that there are, according to various news reports, thirteen states which require the same healthcare requirements.  Nor am I going to comment upon the fact that the Catholic bishops seem to have no problem with that, even though each state is required to adhere to the Constitution of the United States.  Put another way, the states aren’t allowed to violate 1st Amendment rights anymore than the Federal government or the Catholic Church.

Nor am I going to comment upon the fact that the Canadian healthcare system guarantees contraception to women.  And the Catholic Church doesn’t make a complaint based upon some obscure Papal decree.  Nor am I going to comment upon the fact that the Catholic Church does not have a tax exempt status in Canada and the taxes that are paid by the Catholic Church help to fund healthcare, part of which are for services related to health issues specific to women such as contraception.  I have yet to hear any Catholics up here in Canada cry at the outrage of being forced to support something that so reprehensibly offends their moral sensibilities.

The reason I won’t make any comments is that my confusion has nothing to do with any of this.  My uncertainty comes from the fact that it appears that the education about American history and the influences that shaped the writing of the Constitution that I received appears to be vastly different from the education received by the Catholic bishops or their supporters.  Perhaps these Catholic bishops are not American citizens by birth.  That would explain why there is such a disparity in my understanding and theirs.  Having had to learn the history of the United States as an adult would have meant that their interpretation of American history was most likely processed through the eyes of their Catholic faith and it is their strict faith and adherence to Catholic doctrine and their sworn allegiance to their sovereign, the Pope, that helped them get the gigs as bishops.  Unfortunately, this hypothesis doesn’t appear to be supported by the facts.  A quick look at the birth places of American bishops listed at Wikipedia indicates that almost all of them were born in the U.S.A.

I remember as a child learning about the Pilgrims and their journey to Plymouth Rock.  In fact, every year before Thanksgiving, we would be inundated with images of happy Indians, turkeys and Pilgrims wearing those funny hats with buckles.  They wore the buckles on their hats rather than on their belts because they were Dissenters.  In other words, the Church of England believed that buckles should be worn on belts and the Pilgrims disagreed.

Also known as Separatists, the Dissenters believed it to be their moral duty to dissent from the established church which was the Church of England.  The Church of England, in keeping with the traditions developed by the Catholic Church, had used its power as the established church to have laws passed requiring everyone to attend Anglican services.  Apparently, attendance was required to make sure that the buckles were worn properly by everyone[1].   Failure to attend church could result in horrible penalties such as fines.  The Dissenters, who didn’t like giving their money to another religious organization, fled to Holland.  They knew better than to go to France or Spain, where they would have been burned at the stake by the Catholic Church due to the heretical nature of their beliefs.  The Dissenters, who were the forbearers of the American Puritans, a deeply conservative Christian group who believed that sex was bad and money was good, didn’t approve of the free use of dykes by the Dutch.  Fearful that they would become just as tolerant as the Dutch about forming relationships with dykes, they boarded the Mayflower, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed on Plymouth Rock.  The story ended with the Pilgrims killing a few turkeys, the Indians bringing some corn and squash, and the entire group sitting down to a great feast and giving thanks to God for bringing the Pilgrims to this land of underused potential.

We were led to believe that it was due to the Pilgrims’ tragic story of persecution that the 1st Amendment protecting religious freedom was added to the Constitution.  Never again would Americans allow a tyrant such as King George, the head of the Church of England, or the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, to dominate the political field and religious life.

When I got older, we learned more of the Pilgrim’s story.  For example, a good portion of the Pilgrims died from starvation and they would have all died if the Native Americans hadn’t taught them how to farm.  You have to kind of wonder about a group of people who would travel almost half-way around the world to a new land without any survival skills.  Also, on their way to becoming full-fledged Puritans, they realized that God had meant all of this land to be for good Christians.  So they began to systematically destroy the native pagan culture and kill off the Native Americans.  Later, as Puritans, they engaged in burning heretics at the stake.  A heretic for the Puritans was any person who didn’t adhere to their particular interpretation of Christian morality.  Kind of like the Catholics.

We also learned that the 1st Amendment had nothing to do with the Pilgrims.  It turned out that the American Constitution and its Bill of Rights was written during a historical period referred to as the Age of Enlightenment (or Reason).  This period had emerged after nearly two hundred years of wars; wars in which Christians were told by their religious leaders to kill other Christians who had a different group of religious leaders.  Totally disgusted with the murder of tens of thousands in the name of religious faith and morality, a secular society developed, pushing religious zealousness to the fringes.  The Founders of the United States and Framers of the Constitution believed in the reasoning power of the individual to discern the truth.  For many it may be shocking to discover that Ronald Reagan’s idea of the rugged American individualist can be seen to originate with intellectual lives of these 18th century secularists.

Deists like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin as well as many other visionaries, saw the United States as a shining city on the hill, where reasoned discourse took place, instead of violence in the name of religious faith.

To understand the 1st Amendment, one has to consider the historical philosophy in which it was written.  It was believed that a just and strong society should be tolerant to all religions.  So the religious beliefs of the individual were to be protected, regardless of what those beliefs might be.  But it wasn’t government that those beliefs needed to be protected from.  It was the overreaching power grabs of the different religions and their leaders that people needed to be protected against.

I like the fact that I grew up in a society that is based upon religious tolerance. I like a society that recognizes the Native American Church and respects Jews, Baptists, Anabaptists, Muslims, Mormons, Methodists, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Wiccans, and even Catholics, Sikhs, Atheists and so many more.  I love the fact that all of these groups can safely express their perceived truths.

But expression of perceived truths is not the same as imposing one’s “truth” upon others.  I am perplexed as to how the Catholic bishops and various religious and political conservatives can take “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” to mean that religious groups are exempt from following the law of the land.  Nowhere in the phrasing of the 1st Amendment do I see anything that even suggests that religions are allowed to impose their beliefs upon the American people.

Furthermore, the Papal decrees, doctrines and bulls that the Catholic bishops are trying to impose upon the American people are the product of a foreign sovereign.  What’s next?  Will Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Church of England, be invited back and given equal power?

The Catholic bishops and the Pope are welcome to determine what they find morally acceptable for themselves and for their Catholic flock.  However, that is the extent of it.  Their religion does not put them above or beyond the pervue of the Constitution of the United States.  And the Constitution protects all Americans from the whims of religious groups such as the Catholic Church.

The Catholic bishops and other religious conservatives need to learn to abide by the Constitutional guarantee of freedom from religious tyranny.

[1] This is a complete fabrication.  The religious argument in England during the 17th century had nothing to do with buckles.  Instead the English were bogged down in an argument about which end of the egg, small or wide, was the proper end to use to open it.

A Question of Doubt

12 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in General Nonsense

≈ Leave a comment

As I sit here, thinking about what to write, I question the entire process of putting my thoughts onto such a public forum.  I mean, who am I to think that anything I have to say would be valuable to anyone.  In fact, it is at times like this when I can feel all of the substantive thoughts leaking out of my mind that I can only conclude that I have nothing useful to say.  I am further certain that my only real contribution will be to ramp up the noise of a world that is bursting with opinion and self-glorification.

That’s not always true.  There have been uncountable times when chatting with friends over a beer, or even better, over several beers that I have felt brilliant baubles of wisdom emerge from the deep recesses of my equally deep mind and float out of my mouth, shedding light upon the shadows of ignorance.  Given the steady stares and bobbing of their heads, I know that my friends are more than impressed.  They know what I know. World peace is possible!  If only those who hold positions of power would heed my insights and advice.

That’s not always true either.  There have been many times that I have stood before a university/college classroom or presented findings at a research conference, while a little voice in my head tells me that I am a fake.  Not only has a mistake been made regarding who should be standing in front of the room, but I’m convinced that there is at least one person sitting in that room who knows that I am a charlatan.  As I talk, I look in the eyes of each person, checking for any sign that they are about to jump up and reveal my ignorance to the entire group.  I watch the clock slowly ticking away the minutes, hoping that the end of my appointed time will arrive before any public revelation is made that the wrong person is standing in front of the room.

See my confusion?  Even my doubt is doubtful.  If I am even uncertain about my doubt, how can I be certain that I actually know what I think that I know?