I think this guys sums it up pretty well:
"US is better than Canada -- This should be a good one.
Sat, February 12, 2005
U.S. is better than Canada
By MICHAEL COREN -- For the Toronto Sun
I love this country. I came here almost 19 years ago and have spent the majority of my adult life here.
It pains me to say it, it really does. But the fact is that in so many areas and walks and ways of life, the United States is now a better country than Canada.
There, I've said it. Because I'm so very tired of the way, particularly in the last two years, that we Canadians have come to define ourselves not by who we are but by who we are not.
At its most innocuous, it is a mere insecurity about our southern neighbours. At its most repugnant, however, it is publicly funded mediocrities screaming abuse at a great and noble nation because their own self-esteem is so fragile. With a malodorous stew of ignorance and malice, they pump Canada at the expense of deflating the United States.
They say that we are about peace and they are about war. Nonsense. We haven't been able to keep the peace for years even if we'd wanted to do so. We haven't the aircraft or the equipment. It's the Americans who send most of the aid and keep most of the peace.
They say we are informed and intelligent, they are insular and foolish. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and a plethora of world-class universities. Nobel Prize winners by the dozen, internationally renowned scientists, scholars and sages. Goodness me, they even produce better anti-Americans than we do.
They say we are sophisticated, they are dumb. Yet they have more symphony orchestras, more theatres, more libraries, more museums per head than we do in Canada.
They say we are free, they are not. Really? Take the example of Fox News. For years this right-of-centre network was barred from Canadian airwaves, while we publicly funded left-of-centre equivalents such as the CBC.
Fox is now available on digital cable and, well, nothing has changed at all. In other words, Canadians are not quite as pathetic and vulnerable as our leaders assume. We can be trusted with alternative views.
They say we have arts and culture while all they have is trash television. Not quite. They have a massive variety of television, including the most trashy. Thing is, we have tried to produce trash TV but failed. As we fail when we try to copy American legal dramas, police dramas, historical dramas.
They say we produce art movies while they produce mere populism. Not so. In spite of generous government funding, we make variations on a theme. A dying town somewhere in rural Canada, gay characters struggling to be understood, the fight against racism and a bigoted Christian somewhere on the scene. Oh, and a few pornographic images thrown in for good measure.
They say we have diversity and wit in our press, while they have conformity and lack of style. Yet every American city has a number of impressive daily newspapers and most small towns have weekly publications. They have liberal and conservative, religious and secular, black and white.
They have wide and different ownership, a multitude of different and contrary expression, the right to say almost anything, the liberty to question authority, the expectation of argument and debate, the protection of the basic right to speak one's mind.
Bashers of the U.S. say we have the separation of church and state while they have too much religion. The truth is that they have a constitutional requirement to separate church and state but allow religion to have its place in the public square, thus giving voice to so many brilliant and ethical people.
We effectively silence people of faith, lie to and about them and insult the very ideas that founded Canada itself. We stifle talk of moral behaviour in the name of morality. We deny the difference between right and wrong and then condemn people as being wrong if they disagree.
We say we are mature and they are childish. Which shows just how immature we are and how much growing up we need to do.
Time to put away the toys of smugness and conceit and make our own way in the world. With or without a government grant."
